


Under Different Circumstances

by MagusLibera



Series: The Light in the Darkness [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 3x14 Flashbacks, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-01-20 16:37:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 56,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21284831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Oliver Queen is a monster. He has killed. He has tortured. There is more blood on his hands than he cares to admit. He doesn't deserve to go home, his family deserves better than him, but his father asked him to right his wrongs, and who is he to refuse?Oliver returns to Starling City instead of travelling to Coast City after the events of Hong Kong. There he watches over his family and finds himself unable to stay away from the babbling blonde he saw in his father's office. As he works to cross names off the list and take down the evil in his city, he finds that she has a knack for getting into trouble and, inevitably, their paths converge.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: The Light in the Darkness [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534367
Comments: 465
Kudos: 423





	1. I see that look in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> So, in honour of a week in which Oliver met his grown up children, I had a birthday, Halloween happened and it was announced that Emily will be returning for the finale, I have decided to post this first chapter earlier than expected. I was going to wait until the whole thing was written, but couldn't help myself. This is just a short opening to a much longer story for which I have completed almost twelve of the sixteen planned chapters. Chapter two will be coming as soon as all sixteen are done. The chapter title is from Ruelle's Madness - as seen in the opening of 7x01.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

**Chapter I – I see that look in your eyes**

He thought that he would be better at this by now. Calmer at least. But the way that his heart is pounding through his chest, competing with the sound of Maseo’s voice for his attention, tells a different story.

Maybe it’s because this is personal. He can’t remember having done a personal mission before now. On the island, personal stakes were drowned out by the ever-present need to _survive_. In Hong Kong, even in the mission with Tommy, self-preservation and _threat, target, threat_ had ruled. But here, in _his_ city, in _his_ family’s company, watching the messages from _his_ dead father load whilst Maseo urges him to leave and those heels click ever closer, he’s on edge in a way that he can never remember being before.

“You have to go, someone’s coming.” Maseo repeats, and this time he takes heed, and dashes around the corner, USB in hand.

His heart is still pounding and he’s desperately analysing whether the intruder falls into _threat_ or _target_ when he hears her babble for the first time.

“You’re cute,” has she seen him? He looks around and sees her, blonde ponytail and sparkling blue eyes, but she’s not looking at him, she’s looking at the photo of him and his father, the one that he would in no way describe as _cute_, “It’s too bad you’re, you know, dead – which is obviously a lot worse for you than it is for me.” She sighs, “I really need to learn to stop talking to myself. And it’s as he sees her walk away that he realises that, for the first time in three years – probably even longer – he’s genuinely smiling, he’s _amused_ by this girl. And he knows, she’s no _threat_, and she could never be a _target_, she’s a _person_. He hasn’t seen anyone as a person in a long time. Not even his first year on the island. Yao Fei, Shado, Slade they were his allies, but they always had the potential to be a _threat_, as Slade well proved, and they were always someone’s _target_.

He feels a pull, right from the centre of his chest to chase after her, to follow her and listen to her babble some more. He would listen to her talk about anything. But he has a mission. There are people who will get hurt if he doesn’t return to Maseo and he cannot risk that, so he tucks away the warmth in his chest to savour at some other point. He memorises that perfect moment with that adorable girl and he pushes on.

*************************

Later, after he kills his sister’s drug dealer and watches Lance drinking on the job and everyone he left behind falling apart, there’s a part of him that’s thinking of her. He tells Maseo that he wants to fix all of the things that he broke, and that is true, but he thinks that maybe, just maybe he can build something new as well. If he returns home now, maybe she could be something bright and light in his life as he attempts to piece together the wreckage of his loved ones’ lives. Maybe she could be his redemption.

But then he watches his father’s message and he knows that, if he abandons the mission then there’s no chance in hell that he could deserve her. That he could be worthy of the chance to come home and do right by his family and by her. So he leaves.

*************************

Akio is dead.

Maseo is gone.

Tatsu is broken.

All those people – all the innocents who died because he failed.

And he is a monster. The things that he did, they are unforgivable. He doesn’t deserve redemption, he doesn’t deserve the chance to do right by anything, or to be happy. All he is capable of is destruction anyway. All he could do is further ruin his friends’ and family’s lives. All he could do to _her_ is snuff out that beautiful light she has inside her.


	2. buried in broken dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver is back in Starling City, fighting the criminals on The List and watching over the people that he cares for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Olicity Anniversary! Two years flies by.
> 
> Seventeen days later, and I'm back. Armed with chapters and excitement to share this thing fully. Updates will be every Thursday and Sunday until we reach the end.
> 
> Some quick notes: Starling in this fic is on the coast in California, as it sometimes is in the show (those maps are contradictory). This is part one of what should eventually become a series. All of the chapter titles come from the lyrics of two songs by the very talented Ruelle: Madness which features in the opening prison scene in 7x01 and The Other Side from 7x22. You know the scene. It made me cry.
> 
> And finally, for those of you still with me, let's talk about 8x06!
> 
> [SPOILERS]
> 
> I am loving Lyla. I hope with everything in me that she's doing this to both get Sara back and to keep JJ, especially after all that talk about family and how she's been working with the monitor for 'a while' - was it since she found out about Sara? There was a bit too much Laurel for me, and nowhere near enough Smoak Queen family and FTA but hopefully 8x07 will fix that, and I did like the episode overall. I especially liked Laurel's comment about Felicity's words coming out of Oliver's mouth and I choose to believe that he called her with the info and was just parroting her explanation of how she found the hideout. AND THEN - and then OLIVER TOUCHED MIA'S SHOULDER just like he touches Felicity's and SHE LET HIM! I'm still buzzing.
> 
> Okay, sorry for the long note. Let's get started.

**Chapter II – buried in broken dreams**

Feet pound against concrete in front of him as he chases the scum through thorny branches. Rob Murdoch is a location manager for Merlyn Global. He is also the Triad’s go-to guy for organising auction locations for the sale of the women they hold captive. Fortunately, he is also an overweight middle-aged guy so catching him comes easily.

Oliver gains the three feet between the two in seconds and reaches out with his bow. Murdoch’s on the ground before he even realises what is happening and Oliver looms over him. Murdoch is clearly terrified, he’s on his back, there is a six-foot-one muscle man with a shadowed, hooded face and a bow and arrow pointed at him.

“Rob Murdoch, you have _failed this city_.” Oliver growls as he draws his bow.

“Please! Please. I have money. I’ll give you anything you want. Do you want girls? I can get you-” There is a glint in his eye. This guy has definitely taken advantage of his position. He is disgusting.

“What I want is to know the location of the next auction.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Please. I-”

“_Shut up_. Where is the auction?” he thunders.

“I can’t. I-” the scent of urine that reaches Oliver’s nose almost brings him joy. Let Murdoch be scared. The sinister glint in Oliver’s eye clearly gives Murdoch the message, and he frantically rattles off an address and a date, one week away. Oliver’s only response is to release the arrow into Murdoch’s eye.

*************************

He is running late. He hadn’t banked on Murdoch running and he’s been pushing it anyway. He’s racing across town to get to QC by eight. He’s ten minutes out and it’s already seven-fifty-six. She is always staying back late, but he’s hoping that today is one of those days that she takes that as far as she can.

He has been back for three weeks now. His sister has found a new dealer, and he is struggling to find a way to help her, short of killing every dealer in the city. His mother is definitely dating Walter Steele, the new CEO of QC. Lance’s drinking hasn’t gotten any better and the only people who seem to have any semblance of a coping method are Laurel and Tommy, who have found comfort in one another, but Tommy is still drowning his feelings in alcohol and Laurel still refuses to acknowledge any emotion other than anger.

His girl – _not his girl_ – she is still as bright as ever. Her name is as perfect as she is. Felicity. Fe-li-ci-ty. _Happiness_. He has not spoken to her once but already he can feel himself falling for her. He has never experienced anything like it. But she is obviously dealing with something. She has just turned twenty-one (which tells him how smart she is, most people would still be working through their first bachelor’s but she’s had a duel masters for over a year already) and instead of going out and enjoying her youth, she spends her whole life at work. He hasn’t found one friend that she spends time with, she either doesn’t have family or isn’t in contact with them and she arrives at work early every day and doesn’t leave until late at night. She is also working as a low-level IT grunt when he knows that, with her qualifications she should be working in applied sciences or at least managing IT.

He worries for her. She doesn’t yet have a car and she lives on the third floor of a townhouse right outside the Glades. Anything could happen to her on her walk home. He _has_ to be there to watch over her. He always is.

*************************

He’s in luck. She doesn’t leave until quarter past eight. His heart skips a beat when he sees her blonde head appear. She is so beautiful. She’s babbling again. He has no idea what she’s saying, some technobabble beyond his comprehension but it’s so refreshing to him to hear her small frustrations and incredible thought process.

Under his watch, she arrives home without any trouble. He should leave, he should hit the streets again, chase after some other name on the list but he’s got no control when it comes to her. It is incredibly creepy, and he realises that he is technically stalking her, but he cannot help himself when he climbs onto the roof of the house across the street and just sits, watching her as she takes off her shoes – they are sporting pandas today – and lets her hair down in a cascade of gold. He greedily drinks in the sight of her settling onto her sofa and putting on that weird show she loves about time travel and aliens whilst she eats the leftovers from the Chinese she ordered the night before. She eats terribly, skips breakfast in favour of coffee and often forgets lunch. She only ever eats take-out in the evenings and all he wants is to cook her a decent meal but he promised himself that he wouldn’t let the darkness touch her and he will be damned if he breaks that promise. She falls asleep on the sofa, yet another bad habit of hers, and he spends far too long watching her sleep before he drags himself away, forcing himself not to go in there and carry her to her bed.

*************************

The city is unusually quiet as he makes his way across the Glades to his father’s old steel factory. Normally, his journey back would be interrupted by at least two assholes trying to take advantage of those perceived to be weaker, to be vulnerable. It disgusts him. This city has gone to hell in the three years that he was away. Though it may not just be the city, he has changed and he is struggling to tell whether the corruption and crime that he sees around every corner since his return is more to do with his ignorance and naiveté before the Gambit or because of his training and the message his father left him. It doesn’t matter either way. Filth has filled his home and the police have stood by and watched the Glades fall and the corporations rise so it is up to him to clean up the mess.

*************************

_His journey home was long and arduous. He fluctuated in his decision to return to Starling constantly for the entire two weeks that he stowed away on that ship, and he had ended up staying in Coast City for an entire week before he finally forced himself to jump on the back of a train and make his way north._

_There was no chance that he would be able to preserve his anonymity in this place if he had paid for a hotel room or apartment, and going back to Queen Mansion was out of the question. The Queen Consolidated Steel Factory in the Glades was perfect. It was located within the most crime-ridden neighbourhood in Starling, it was abandoned and no one would ever expect anyone to enter the place, let alone be living in it. It was cold, dark, dusty and almost entirely concrete and metal but it was safe, secure and easily defensible. He had set up his operation in the manager’s office. A stolen police radio, a basic sleeping pallet and an excellent medical kit were enough to support his crusade, and the money that he had unknowingly – not to mention unwillingly – earned working for Waller was far more than enough to pay for any supplies that he would need for the rest of his natural life._

_Not that he expected himself to last long. Three years in hell did wonders for one’s general fitness and fighting ability, but even the most intense three years are still just three years. He was strong, and fast but there were stronger and faster people out there, and as good as he may have been at firing a bow at a target, he needed to work intensely on hitting moving targets, especially the living kind._

*************************

In spite of the peaceful streets, it is late when he gets back to the foundry. He considers fitting in a training session, but ultimately decides to sleep. He gets little enough as it is and he knows that, as soon as a nightmare shakes him awake, the only thing that will calm the storm in his mind is his training, so it can be done then.

He looks through the list and crosses Rob Murdoch’s name from it. It’s not enough. He has been back for weeks and he’s only dealt with five people on this list, none of whom seem all that important in the grand scheme of things but all of whom are vile, repulsive criminals who deserve the arrows that stopped their hearts. He can’t help but feel that he is missing something important but feels that all he can do is keep making his way through the list and hope that he unearths exactly what it was that made his father believe that he had failed the city.

*************************

_“Okay, that one was really close.” She sounds scared, even as she looks up at him with dancing eyes – though that may be the alcohol._

_“Sara. We’re going to be fine.” He leans down to kiss her and that’s when his life goes to hell. There’s a crashing sound, followed by the creaking of great slats of wood and the whole room is turned on its side. He and Sara crash into a wall and he thinks that he hit his head on something because he’s dazed and struggling to find his bearings but he can’t see Sara anymore._

_“Sara?” he calls out._

_“Oliver.” He looks over to see her lying on her back, breathless from whatever blow she took. She reaches out to him, and her hand obscures her face for a second but as it passes and her fingers stretch towards him, he sees that it’s not Sara but Felicity._

_“Felicity, no!” he screams, he knows exactly what comes next but he’s too late. He’s always too late, and she disappears into the storming waves below just like she always does._

*************************

“Felicity!” his heart is pounding, his whole body covered in a fine sheen of ice cold sweat and he can feel his breath coming in short, sharp bursts that don’t allow nearly enough oxygen into his lungs. He curls into a ball, waiting for the attack to finish.

What is it that makes a mere dream about losing Felicity feel somehow even more traumatic than the actual, horrifying event from his past did? Why is it that she instils such a fierce need to protect and her in him? He pictures her face, as it was the night before, so peaceful and beautiful in sleep. Her straightened gold locks an adorable mess framing her face. Her glasses slipping down her nose.

After about ten minutes, he is breathing easier again, but his heart is still pounding. There will be no sleep for him after this, it may be the worst reaction that he’s had yet. He drags himself down the steps to the pseudo-gym that he has set up and sets to work. It takes him two hours to acknowledge that the prickle of fear running up his spine is not going to go away until he knows that she is safe. He needs to see her.

*************************

She has not moved. She is still right there, on the sofa, exactly where he left her. She is obviously cold as she has curled in on herself even more, which has caused her glasses to slip off one ear and they are now barely hanging on by the tip of her nose and the other ear. But she is entirely safe. For the first time in hours, he feels his heart calm as he takes up vigil over her house.

*************************

That morning, like every morning before, Felicity Smoak walks to work with the odd feeling that she is being watched, but that is not what she finds strange. No, the strangest thing is that she does not once feel afraid of whomever may be watching her. If anything, it makes her feel safer.


	3. Feel the fury closing in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver continues to beat the streets whilst Felicity has a chaotic day at QC. This leads to Oliver panicking, and there is trouble afoot...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy December, everybody! Welcome to my favourite month and my favourite season, Winter has come, and with it (hopefully) some snow! Today also marks the start of the Countdown to Crisis - seven days to go.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has commented and left kudos, it's so lovely to know that some of you are enjoying this! We're getting into the story now so expect longer chapters, with much more happening and a lot more Felicity.
> 
> And to Mandycaker, you knew that this was coming...

**Chapter III – Feel the fury closing in**

Oliver has established something of a routine following his return home. He sleeps until a nightmare wakes him, stoutly ignores both the fact that Felicity Smoak is becoming a more and more regular feature in his sleep and the fact that he calms down faster when thinking of her, he trains for several hours, and he escorts Felicity to work then his sister to school. The day passes with him locating and… dealing with whatever poor excuse for a human being his List can offer before he follows Thea’s journey home, hits the streets and then watches over Felicity until she is well into sleep and he feels she is safe enough for him to make his way back to the foundry and punch anyone who may need punching on his way.

He is not living, but he did not come back to Starling City to live. He came back to right his father’s wrongs, to protect those he loves and to rid the city of those destroying it, like his father.

*************************

There are still three days until the auction, so the recipient of his anger tonight is Steven Perry. Steven Perry owns several large properties in the Glades that he rents out at a competitive rate. To anyone living in the Glades, it is an excellent deal. Running water, electricity and a safe, warm home at an affordable cost for the area. Unfortunately, Mr. Perry seems to believe that his obligation ends there. He ensures that the _availability_ of the amenities offered by his contract is maintained, sure but when it comes to the _access_ that his tenants have to that which is within their rights, he seems to believe that it is their responsibility to repair and maintain the delivery systems in his building. And when it comes to the asbestos still polluting the walls of his buildings, the lead-lined pipes, the pest control and communal areas like the stairs, he sees no way in which he should be held responsible for any illness or injury incurred but does enjoy to bill anyone who, when stepping on a rotted section of floorboard and falling through it, ‘damages his building’.

Perry is enjoying a drink on his balcony in an expensive apartment in an expensive part of town far away from the Glades when Oliver visits him. He silently makes his way from rooftop to rooftop, stalking his way down the fire escape before he drops in front of Perry.

“Steven Perry, you have _failed this city_!” his bow is drawn taut, arrow perfectly poised to cut through Steven’s heart. There is a crash as the glass smashes on the floor, “You’re going to fix up all of the buildings you own. You’re going to repair any damages and you’re going to make sure that your tenants get the amenities that it is within their rights to have. Then you’re going to reimburse them for any costs that they have suffered as a result of your negligence.”

“Or what?” Perry sneers. Oliver adjusts his aim infinitesimally, and shoots him through the hand.

“Or I’ll make it so that you won’t miss the money that I have to take to do it myself.” He growls. He reaches back and quickly fires to a nearby building, rappelling away before Steven even realises what’s happened.

Perry will not go to the police or to a hospital. By this point, the Vigilante has made enough waves that the police know he is out there, and the media have begun to take notice. It’s become very clear that his targets are all criminals or at least suspected of criminal activity, so Perry letting on that he has been targeted is likely to end up with and investigation and his eventual incarceration. No, Perry will deal with his injury himself, which means that the arrow that Oliver put through him will stay near him for the foreseeable future and the wireless virus, borrowed from A.R.G.U.S. on that arrow will have the time that it needs to gain access to all and any bank accounts that Perry holds. Whether or not it is necessary that Oliver have this access is up to Perry himself.

*************************

Felicity Smoak has not had the easiest life. She had a happy enough childhood, though she lived close to the poverty line, until she was seven years old and her father left her and her mother. After that, they fell below the poverty line more often than not, and staying afloat meant that her mother was very rarely around, and even if she was it was not like they got along well. She loves her mother, but they are very different people and her mother never really understood her. Few people did. Being barely thirteen years old when starting high school was hard, though not as hard as moving across the country to go to MIT only a few weeks after turning sixteen.

It was hard for her to connect with people as so few of them were able to put up with her babbling and tendency to talk in tech rather than English for long enough to get to know her. Cooper did, but then he took advantage of her smarts and ultimately they both paid the price for that.

So, when she moved to Starling after graduation one year ago, she threw herself into her work. Is it beneath her level of education? Sure. Does she regularly become bored with the menial tasks she is given? Most certainly, but as easy as it is, it is labour-intensive, so keeps her busy and ensures that she does not develop anything else that could be used to hurt someone. And if she stays back late most nights then all that happens is that the QC firewalls become more secure, and she has less time alone at home to get in her head.

*************************

_There had been a hacking attempt. She had been making her way through her regular stack of laptops infected with porn-site viruses and keyboards with coffee stains when the department had suddenly come to life around her desk. Someone had shouted out the word ‘hacker’ and that had been all it took for her to drop the damaged keyboard in favour of her own, and make her way into the QC system. The hacker had been good. They had made their way through all of the initial defences and were working into the private high-security applied sciences files containing all of the company’s current projects. Corporate espionage then._

_Applied sciences and the IT department had mounted a sufficient response, and she could see that the hacker was struggling more with the code that she herself had modified, so she decided to leave them to their work and focus on locating the hacker’s IP address and tracing it for their location. She had them in minutes. They were nearby in the city, obviously looking for advantage in the faster connection afforded by closer proximity and not expecting anyone to trace them back until it was too late. It would have been a smart move had it not been for Felicity._

_She grabbed up her tablet and linked it to her computer, before running to the lift. No one paid her any attention, all too busy working on stopping the attack. She hit the button for the executive floor and ran out as soon as the doors opened. This floor was not any better than her own. Assistants dashed between offices, carrying messages with updates on the attack between the executives and Felicity could hear at least three very loud phone calls coming from the offices from outside the lift alone._

_Deciding to just go for it, she marched into the office of the CEO himself, Walter Steele. It was chaos in there, people were shouting at the CTO, demanding answers that he did not have. Mr Steele, however, was just sat, rubbing his temples amidst the madness._

_“Mr Steele.” She had said. Far too quiet, why did she ever think anyone would hear her?_

_“Mr Steele.” She raised her voice. Still no response. Okay, they asked for it._

_“MR STEELE.” Loud voice always worked. Everyone shut up and looked at her, bewildered. She felt her cheeks flush. “Um… hi. I’m Felicity Smoak, I work in the IT department.” She made a vague gesture at her employee ID._

_“What the hell are you doing up here? You shou-”_

_“Miss Smoak. What is the problem?” Walter cut across the CTO, looking at her kindly._

_“I- I back-traced the hacker’s IP address and, they’re pretty good because they got into our system but they’re not that good. You know it actually didn’t even take that much effort, they didn’t even configure their-,”_

_“Miss Smoak.”_

_“Well, long story short, I have their location if you want to give it to the police and stop the hack then… you can now.” The room erupted once again._

_“What do you mean?”_

_“Who is this girl?”_

_“How did you do this?”_

_“Why has no one else informed us of this?”_

_“Quiet.” Walter cut through them all again. “Miss Smoak, are you certain.”_

_“Yes Mr Steele. And they’re close. Only five blocks away.”_

_“If Miss Smoak says that she’s found them, then she has. The ‘how’s and ‘why’s can be determined after we apprehend this hacker. Mr Bennet, I need you to call nine-one-one, and alert them as to our findings. Mrs Wang, go to Mr Armitage in security. Tell him to send anyone available to the address that Miss Smoak has found and surround it. No one in or out until the police arrive. Miss Smoak, wait here with me.”_

_“Yes Mr Steele.”_

_It had taken less than an hour for Mr Steele to receive the word that three suspects had been apprehended after being found at a computer system on the scene. It took less than ten minutes for him to gather the heads of applied sciences, computer sciences, IT, the anti-hacking teams and the CTO in his conference room._

_“Okay. Who wants to tell me what happened here today?” Walter started. No one answered. “I’ll start then. Today, someone tried to hack us and they managed to get through several lines of defence before we noticed. Who got the first alert?”_

_“My team, sir.” The head of computer sciences, Mr Cooper answered._

_“And what was the response?”_

_The CTO stepped in, “Mr Cooper set his team to work keeping the hacker out of our systems and contacted me. I then contacted Mr Anderson in IT and had him put a team to work as well.”_

_“And what was your response?” He levelled his gaze at Felicity’s colleagues in IT and computer sciences. One of the guys from computer sciences launched into a lengthy and detailed response on how they had fended off the attack._

_“Honestly though sir,” he finished, “The attackers would have made it through much further without us noticing if it hadn’t been for the mutant coding. Hell, they might have even beaten us today.” That earned him a glare from his boss._

_“Mutant coding?” Walter asked._

_“Yeah. There was code in our firewall that I’ve never seen before. It certainly wasn’t put there by any of our guys but it had improved on some of the weak spots and there was some extra stuff in there that was just brilliant, I never would have thought to put anything like that in.”_

_“Oh!” Felicity exclaimed, somewhat accidentally. Everyone turned to look at her._

_“So… look. Mr Steele I am so grateful for this job and I promise I work really hard at it and please, please don’t fire me but I may have, kind of – just a little bit, I swear – tweaked the QC firewall code when staying back late after hours.”_

_“You what?” her boss yelled. “How dare you! You had no right. Mr Steele, I am truly sorry for this. You’re fired Miss Smoak, you likely compromised the system! If you hadn’t done this, we would never have been vulnerable the way that we were today!”_

_“You’re planning on firing someone who, by our own people’s admission, was single-handedly responsible for the adjustments that saved our company from attack today – Miss Smoak, are you even part of the IT team involved in today’s response?”_

_“No, sir.”_

_“So you took it upon yourself to help out.”_

_“Well, I’d already completed my quota for the day and I was working on some of the extra jobs that we have in the department so I figured the more people helping the better, but I could see that they were struggling with some of my code already, and the response we’d mounted looked like it was going to hold them off for long enough so I thought that I’d take advantage and locate them. I’m really sorry Mr Steele, I know that none of this was my place but I swear that it hasn’t taken up any of my paid hours and I just – when I see a system that’s set up badly, it hurts me, in my soul and I had to fix it. I had to!” Felicity knew that she was getting loud and increasingly frantic, but she really, really wanted to keep her job._

_“Well, that’s all I needed to know.” Mr Steele got up and started gathering his things, “Miss Smoak, you’re not fired, that would probably be the stupidest decision that anyone could make after today. You will have to be reprimanded for messing with the code without permission or supervision, so I’ll be handing you some… extra duties from today. However, for your initiative and excellent work, I am going to appoint you as a liaison between the IT and computer science departments. You will be directly involved in any programming that is done for the company’s infrastructure and you’ll spend your days coding rather than wasting your talents dealing with basic IT errors. Why you ever applied for that position, I’ll never know, you would have been accepted by applied sciences in a heartbeat.” And with that, he was gone._

The rest of her evening has been no less chaotic than the day had been. She has received some dirty stares from her boss, but he still set her up in an empty office connected to the server room, and she is able to get lost in her plans for her new position. By the time she checks her phone, it is almost eleven.

*************************

Oliver is getting restless. Is she safe? Is she even still in there? Why has she not left yet? He has been waiting for three hours and his mind is racing with all of the horrific possibilities as to what may have happened to her and he is desperately trying to stay calm but he is terrified. When he finally sees her leaving the building, he thinks that his heart may actually have stopped. _She’s safe, she’s here, she’s safe_. She walks home like usual and, had he not been so distracted by his thoughts of what could have kept her back so late and why she is still so distracted by her phone whilst _walking through the city in the dark_ and _what happened?_, he may have noticed the four men that looked up as she passed them a little sooner. He may have noticed them follow her as she turned down, onto an empty street. He may have been faster.

*************************

She is still engrossed in her phone on her walk home. She had not wanted anything like this, especially not after Cooper, but now that she had it, she realised just how bored she was and how much she _wanted_ this, and to do well at it. She had so many ideas bottled up and she would be damned if she did not implement them now that she had the chance, starting by explaining what she had done to the system in her spare time to the others that she would be working with.

When four men surround her, she does not notice. Not until one of them grabs her arm, and causes for her to drop her phone.

“Hey, little lady,” he sneers, “maybe me, my friends and you go find somewhere private to have a little chat.” She freezes up as she feels something distinctly sharp poke her in the back. It causes her to arch away from the weapon, but that makes her move into the guy holding her arm. A whimper escapes her as he grins and presses himself into her.

“It’s you, my friends and I.” is all that she can say.

“What?”

_What are you saying, Felicity? Shut up. _“You said ‘me, my friends and you’ but that’s not right. It’s ‘you, my friends and I’.” _Shut up, shut up, shut up._

Before he has a chance to reply, before the three grinning goons around them can touch her or try anything, she hears a deep, gravelly voice grind out “Let. Her. Go.” They all whip around to look at the source of the voice.

It is a green guy with a bow and arrow. The Starling City Vigilante.

*************************

He snaps the second that he sees her drop her phone. This asshole has dared to put his hands on _Felicity_, these _men_ have threatened her. They will be lucky if they are able to walk away from tonight.

He jumps down just as Dead Man One starts talking, his hand still coiled around Felicity’s arm, by the time she is flinching away from a knife held by Dead Man Two, and freezing in fear as One moves into her, all Oliver can see is red. And then she is _babbling_, at a time like this, she is trying to correct her attacker’s grammar. _Only you, Felicity Smoak_. He does not even realise that he is moving as he shoots the hand holding the knife, but Two’s cry of pain alerts Three and Four to the danger, and they charge him. He ducks down, avoiding two fists and takes advantage of their stumbles to kick Three in the back of the head, sending him sprawling to the ground. Two is still howling in pain, the arrow is still in his hand, but Four gets back up with a knife of his own and slashes – with no finesse but tonnes of anger – at Oliver. It is then that Felicity lets out a whimper and it distracts him enough that he turns to look at her. Instinctively, he moves towards where One is holding her with a knife at her throat, but he has forgotten about Four, and that allows him to get a hit in. Oliver feels his right side split open, his only reaction is to flip Four and bury the knife in his arm.

It is just Oliver and One left, but One has Felicity.

“Put down the bow.” One says, pressing the knife into her neck. Oliver sees a drop of blood bead, and does as he is told. “Good. Now you’re going to stay right there, and I’m going to leave with Blondie here, understood?” Oliver breathes in deep and assesses his target. There are only three metres between them, Oliver can cross that distance in a heartbeat, but one wrong move could result in Felicity gaining a fatal injury, which he cannot risk. He makes eye contact with her, she has tears welling in her eyes but she is so, so brave and suddenly, her eyes holding his, she goes limp.

The distraction allows Oliver to tackle One to the floor, and hit him in the face repeatedly. He hits him again and again until he faintly hears her sweet voice “Stop! Please stop!” he follows her order, looking at his bloodied red hands and the carnage surrounding him. There are four men on the floor. One of them is just unconscious from a nasty hit and a fall, but the other two are bleeding profusely from the arrow and knife embedded in their hands, and the one that he is stood over is unrecognisable for the blows that Oliver made to his face. And Felicity, beautiful Felicity’s face is frozen in fear, her mouth half open and her eyes wide.

He has made her afraid. She is _afraid of him_ and really, can he blame her? He just brutally beat four people in front of her and _none_ of this would have happened if he had just _paid better attention_.

_He is disgusting_. So he runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! On Thursday, we'll finally get to what we're all waiting for, I promise.


	4. save my soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Oliver's retreat, Felicity finds that she cannot let a mystery lie and follows. She is going to thank the man who saved her, and then she is going to ask him a lot of questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back and I did not enjoy the long wait! It was only four days but, I swear, it felt like a lifetime.
> 
> So... three days until Crisis and Chapter V will be coming on the same day as Hour One. After Arrow on Tuesday I think it's safe to say that I'm excited. Apprehensive, and terrified, but excited.
> 
> SPOILERS
> 
> I am angry about Oliver telling Laurel that he was glad she was there and thanking Rene and Dinah for 'always being there for [him], no matter what'. Have these people forgotten 5x23? Season 6B? They did redeem themselves with those beautiful talks with his children and Oliver and Dig's conversation though. Mia and William are going to grow up together! And also, LYLA!
> 
> Anyway, here's another chapter!

**Chapter IV – save my soul**

Felicity is frozen in shock. What just happened? She was so sure that those men were going to… that she was… and then the _fracking Starling City Vigilante_ shows up and he just… he saves her.

Then he vanishes.

They had locked eyes. His piercing blues had met hers and then he _ran away_ from her. Stories of the Vigilante have been circling, and whilst many believe it to be some sort of hoax or urban myth, Felicity has taken interest. She has scoured the security footage at locations that he had been sighted at and found a lot of it has been erased, but the before and after shots told the story well enough as, once the feed came back online, beaten bodies and active crime scenes become visible. She may not agree with the killing spree that he seems to be on, but she can’t deny that he is taking down many people who the law has failed to bring to justice in any way.

She just never thought that she would be in the middle of such a scene. It is then that she realises what a mess she is in. She has to get out of here unless she wants to become the primary witness in a slew of anti-vigilante and assault cases. Naturally, she runs in the same direction that the Vigilante had, she is not going to let him just run away like that. Felicity Smoak hates mysteries and that man just made himself the biggest mystery in her life.

All she knows is that she has to put as much distance between herself and those men as she can, she has no idea where the Vigilante has gone to or where he may be. Inspiration strikes her when she sees a security camera, he may be good at turning the cameras off and erasing footage when he’s got a target, but today’s attack was spontaneous and he left the scene far too quickly to have been able to cover his tracks. No matter how good he is at avoiding surveillance, this is twenty-ten and no one is good enough to completely avoid getting caught on camera.

*************************

She hides at the corner of an alley, not thinking about how unsafe she is hiding in an abandoned alley at half eleven at night in the Glades, and begins a scan for any cameras in the vicinity. She quickly compiles a code to maintain the search and starts to comb through anything from the last thirty minutes. It takes more time than she would have wanted, he is _really _good, but a wireless nanny-cam in somebody’s window saves her. There he is, scaling a building, heading deeper into the Glades.

Setting off in that direction, she refines her search. It takes her another half an hour to pinpoint the location that he stopped at, but by the time that the clock strikes midnight she is standing outside the old QC steel factory, wondering how she is supposed to get in.

The fence is rigid, there is little to no give in the meshed metal and the weave is tight. Getting her toes into the gaps could be difficult, but she is going to have to try.

“Okay Smoak, you can do this.” She tells herself as she slings her bag over her shoulder, tablet tucked safely back inside, and begins to scale the fence. She was right, it is hard to get enough of a grip with her feet to push up, and she is sweating by the time she gets half way, but eventually, she makes it to the top, and somewhat gracefully falls back down the other side.

She makes her way to a side entrance and hacks her way through the electronic lock. There is a loud clanging sound coming from inside, it could almost be described as rhythmic but the effort going into the production of the sound seems far too angry. Her intention is to observe, to solve her mystery and go from there, but as she rounds the corner all of that goes out of the window because – sweaty… muscles… yum. Oh. Wow.

*************************

Really, she should have known that he would be the single most deliciously muscled man in the world or he would never have survived as a vigilante, but she was not expecting to walk in on this. Swing, chin up, _jump_, swing… she gasps. The muscles in his back jump as he twists and drops, taking up a defensive posture but the second that he sees her, he stills.

There are several moments where the two of them just look at one another, neither one talking or moving, and then Felicity gasps again, “You’re Oliver Queen! Your hair is different, and you’ve got scruff and muscles, but I know you! I’ve seen pictures in my boss’ office and… you’re supposed to be dead! You died when the Queen’s Gambit went down almost three years ago now. How are you here? How are you even alive? Why are you running around the city with a bow and arrow? Why haven’t you told anyone that you’re alive? What-”

“_Fe-li-ci-ty_.” He rumbles. He doesn’t sound angry or annoyed, if anything, he sounds amused, maybe even… affectionate?

“How do you know my name?”

“What are you doing here? You should have gone home.” he counters.

“I tracked you by hack- uh… using the wireless cameras in the area around where you just saved me – thank you for that, by the way, and it led me to here, and I thought I’d come in here and find out who you are and why you’re doing this, and oh! You’re bleeding.” She gestured to the cut on his side.

“It’s nothing.” He shrugged, “Why do you not… why don’t you hate me? I just brutally beat four men half to death right in front of you. You should be terrified.”

“Do I have a reason to be afraid?” he frantically shakes his head in protest, opening his mouth to assure her of her safety, “Then why would I hate you?” she stops him, “You just saved me from them. You have been saving people all over the Glades for weeks now, you’re a hero. And don’t dodge the question, that cut doesn’t look like nothing.”

“It’s just a flesh wound, it won’t even leave a scar.” He pauses, “I’m not a hero.”

“Yes, you are, and yes, it will if you don’t treat it properly and it gets infected!” she huffed indignantly, marching over to him before she can think better of it and grabbing him as she moves towards the mats. She doesn’t get very far before she meets resistance. She looks back to see his arm stretched out, thumb still in her grasp where her hand has slipped from his wrist, but the rest of him is completely unmoved. She is starting to believe that he is made of stone.

“Mr Queen, please let me clean your wound out, I don’t want it to get any worse.”

“No, Mr Queen was my father, and I told you, it’s fine.”

“Right but he’s dead. I mean he drowned. But you _clearly_ didn’t, so maybe he didn’t either, which means maybe he’s here too and he’s listening to me babble. Which will end, in three… two… one. And I am going to treat your wound and you’re going to let me unless you want to hear my loud voice. I’m sure that your father would agree with me.”

He huffs out a sound that, if she didn’t know any better she would imagine to be a laugh. “My father died when the Gambit went down, Felicity. But you’re right, I didn’t so I’ll let you treat my wound, but just this once.”

“Thank you.” This time, he follows her to the mats.

*************************

He stays quiet, only nodding and pointing as she asks him if he has a first aid kit, and where it is and then sets to washing out and bandaging the cut on his side. It really doesn’t need any of this, but it seems to make her happier to do this for him, so he lets her. Anything to make her happy. He can see her biting her lip, clearly struggling not to let out the thousands of questions that she must have and, in spite of himself, he feels that burst of warmth in his chest that she always seems to be able to draw out of him.

Guilt immediately smothers it. She was never even supposed to know that he exists, never mind know who he is and be sat right in front of him, _touching_ him. She _is_ touching him though, she is leaving fiery trails along his skin every time she shifts to get a better position on his injury and he finds himself becoming quickly addicted to the feeling. Her mere presence is intoxicating. She is pure light and goodness and she embodies the _happiness_ that her name suggests and he feels like he is stepping outside into the sun for the first time after years – more than three – entombed in darkness. He cannot fathom how he can ever turn away from this again.

  
He has to turn away though. It would not be fair to him or to her if he were to stay. All that would accomplish is to drag her down into the darkness with him, and he would loathe himself all the more for it.

He finds himself fighting a smile for the second time today as she begins to babble about work. A flustered blush colours her cheeks when he looks at her. Not that she will ever know it, but he is enjoying hearing her talk to him for a change, and especially so when he realises that her lateness earlier had been due to an unexpected promotion, rather than anything bad.

Once she finishes, she gives him an expectant look, for someone who talk so much, she is also excellent at non-verbal communication, and he knows that she is waiting for him to explain himself and answer her questions. That is the one thing that he cannot do for her.

“Thank you for your concern, Felicity. I think that it’s time for you to go home now though. You should forget that you ever saw me and never think about today ever again.”

“What?” she yells, “No, no, no. No. You do not get to just be here, and save me, and be _alive_ and then tell me that I have to leave and forget about you! That’s not how this works. I helped you, all I want is the answers to my questions.”

“I told you that I didn’t need any help.” He growls, standing up. “You’re the one who followed me here. You have _no right _to question me or my choices. I don’t want you here and I certainly don’t need you here, so it is time for you to _leave_.”

“I can’t just leave you. I hate mysteries, they need to be solved and you’re just one big mystery. And I can’t just let you live here! This place is cold and dark and miserable, why would you stay here when I’m sure that there is a perfectly warm, large bed waiting for you at your family home?”

“You can leave me here and you will. I told you to stop asking questions. Get out. Now.” He towers over her.

“I made a mistake.” She says.

“Following me here? I don’t disagree.”

“No. Thinking that you’d be a reasonable man. Come find me when you’re less of an asshole.” And with that, she leaves.

*************************

Once she is gone, Oliver feels the warmth seep out of him. Whatever emotion and passion that she pulled from inside him, whatever it was that made him feel light and happy and free like he never had before retreated back to where it came from, consumed by the darkness of his soul. He yearns to chase after her, to apologise for shouting at her, for being so callous and harsh but he knows that is not an option. It is a good thing that she is gone. The further away that she is from him, the safer she will be.

Any time that he interacts with her, he is just being selfish. Even when he protects her as she walks to and from work, he is just being selfish. That has never been as evident as it was when she was attacked earlier. He had allowed himself to become so consumed in her and the way that she made him feel that he had not even done the one thing that he was there to do and he had failed to protect her. She had to watch him beat those men today because he lost his edge. Selfish.

No, it is good that she left him. This way, he cannot let her down again, and he can focus on his mission. After all, he still has a human trafficking auction to bust, and a list full of names to cross off and he has always worked best alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I'm sorry. They're both just so stubborn! They'll get past this... eventually.


	5. Cut me deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity continue with their lives after their meeting. Oliver attends the auction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Crisis begins today. I'm not ready. Help.
> 
> Here, distract yourself with this new chapter!

**Chapter V – Cut me deep**

Once she is gone, the passion that had burst through him and resulted in their awful, _fantastic_ and heated argument dissipates. His heart dulls again, beats slowing to their normal, steady pace and he becomes numb to the world once again. For a fleeting moment, he felt that happiness would be possible. But being truly happy, feeling that deep-rooted joy and all-encompassing love that poets write sonnets and ballads about is not possible once the passion is gone. Love and anger seem so opposite from one another that it often seems impossible that they could be so entwined, but both stem from the same deep, dark place in the heart so it is the most natural thing for those one loves the most to also be those who inspire the most explosive anger.

When she is gone, and his anger calms and he makes peace with the fact that he has to live without her, he remembers why she was even there in the first place. He cares for her. He has an integral need to protect her which drove him to follow her around every day in the first place, and which meant that he was there when she was attacked walking home. And now, she is walking home alone through the Glades once again.

He spits out a curse as he grabs his hood and his bow, scrambling out to find her. He catches up to her three blocks away from the Foundry, she is still frowning and grumbling adorably under her breath as she stomps home. Deciding that revealing his presence will only make her angrier, he stays in the shadows on their journey but thankfully, they meet no further problems. When she is finally safe, and the door is locked he leaves immediately. He cannot afford to spend any more time watching her than that which is necessary for her safety. It is making him become more attached to her, and that can only serve as a distraction, especially since he cares too much as it is.

That night is the first night in weeks that, after he is woken by the sounds of Felicity screaming for help, he does not go to her until it is time for her to leave for work.

*************************

Spending less time watching over Felicity turns out to be very productive. Oliver had not realised just how much of his time was being spent on her until he finds himself with hours to spare in the mornings, before she goes to work and the evenings, after she comes home. Now that he is making a conscious effort to avoid her whenever her safety is not an issue, he is able to devote himself to his crusade. In the days leading up to the auction, he has crossed twice as many names off his father’s list than he previously would have, and he has been able to put together detailed research on the buyers and organisers who are slated to be at the auction.

Oliver should have predicted that the leader of the largest human trafficking operation in the city would be another man whose name was on the list. By day, Lester Buchinsky is the semi-respectable owner of several restaurants, bars and small businesses throughout Starling. He has a sizable inheritance, which included the establishments he runs, but if an amount equal to the sum total of his legal wealth were to be withdrawn from Oliver’s own trust fund, the difference would barely be noticeable. By night however, Lester Buchinsky has padded up his wealth by being the mastermind behind a human trafficking ring that steals women and children from almost a dozen countries for their sale and trade in the States. He had ties to the Italian, Chinese and Brazilian mobs and is close personal friends with Frank Bertinelli – another name on the list. One that Oliver plans to deal with as soon as Buchinsky is off the table.

*************************

Felicity wakes up to yet another alert informing her that the Vigilante – who is _Oliver Queen_ – had taken down another three individuals the night before. Because of course she had set up a programme to alert her to all and any mentions of him as soon as she got home after their fight. She had conducted a thorough search into all of his activities, and discovered that he had first shown up about three weeks prior to their meeting and had been steadily taking down targets at a rate of about one corrupt rich guy every night, with a few Glades-level criminals on the side. That rate has increased exponentially in the last two days. He had almost completed his usual quota for a full week in that time and she knows that it is arrogant to assume that the change is because of her, after all why would Oliver Queen care about a lowly IT grunt, but there does seem to be some correlation.

She is still furious at him though. She had tried to _help_ him, and the only thanks that she had received were a few grunts followed by being told that he did not want her help and wanted to be left alone. He is lucky that she had decided not to go to the police, any sane person would have, but he still could not find it in himself to explain to her a single thing. Maybe she did blow up quickly, and maybe he did have a right to his privacy, and yeah, he had thanked her for her ‘concern’, but still, there was no reason for him to have been so rude.

So she may regret storming off, but only because she would never solve the mystery of Oliver Queen now, not because she feels guilty for having pushed him.

Regardless of what her- no, _Starling’s_ resident Vigilante has been doing for the past few days and what reasons he may or may not have for his actions, it is not like Felicity has had much time to devote to thinking about it. When Walter had given her less of a promotion and more of an order into a new position, she had worried that she would have a reduction in labour-intensive tasks which would lead to her having more time to be bored and therefore tempted to code. That could not be further from the truth. The last two days have been a whirlwind of settling into her new office, modifying the servers in her new office to move them from _good_ to _Felicity-approved_, and then getting to know the computer science team over at applied sciences. She finds that she has much more in common with that team and that they are much more able to keep up with her technobabble, though they still seemed baffled by her regular, innuendo-laden babbles.

Her new job also has her travelling all over the company, inspecting various server and system set-ups. She has been given complete creative licence in deciding what to change and add, and an impressive budget with which to implement her changes. The first alteration that she plans to make is in the way that the two departments that she now liaises between work together. The role is perfect for her. She is doing work that truly benefits the company, she is able to perform tasks that challenge her and take her out of her area of expertise and she is so busy that her long hours could now be considered as a part of the job, rather than her own choice.

*************************

Melting into the shadows, footsteps silently falling as he flies across the rooftops of Starling City, Oliver makes his way to the auction. At ten at night, even in the summer, the city is dark enough that the forest green of Oliver’s hood and the dark trousers accompanying it are able to make him disappear as he deftly avoids the few lights still on in one of the most crime-ridden neighbourhoods of the Glades.

The warehouse that the auction is taking place in quickly comes into view, and he can see the muted flashes of lighting inside. The event is beginning with a party. It is an attempt to loosen the bidders’ inhibitions, and thus loosen their purse strings, with alcohol and to keep them entertained as they wait for everybody to arrive before the bidding starts.

There is still a slow trickle of attendees entering the premises. The men are all decked in various gaudy, expensive suits, far too many of which are white, and several have women draped in skimpy dresses dripping in jewellery both fake and real and leaving very little to the imagination hanging off their arms. Oliver cannot fathom what would possess someone to bring along a date to an auction for future sex slaves, but then he cannot imagine what might possess them to go to such an auction in the beginning.

He swings himself onto the roof, and makes his way inside by wrenching open a cracked window. It takes him to an empty area backstage and whilst part of him is grateful that there is no one there, the very audible sounds of women in distress filling his ears makes a bigger part of him ache to hit one of the people facilitating this. It takes great effort for him to control himself enough that he is no longer at risk of hunting someone down and can focus on finding Buchinsky so that, when he puts an end to this, it is permanent.

Slipping out of the room in order to make his way to wherever they are holding the girls feels easier than it should have. The security at this event seems more angled towards spotting and preventing a police invasion. They seem not to have anticipated a Vigilante attack, or even anyone unwelcome going back stage which brings a dark smile to Oliver’s face as he comes upon the guards at the doors of the rooms the girls are in.

His approach goes unnoticed until two of the seven guards, each armed with multiple guns, possibly also with knives, have gone down with arrows impaling their chests. It makes the guard closest to Oliver cry out, and as the other four turn to him, he silences the one closest with a swift jab to the jaw, knocking him out cold.

The other four have drawn their guns, and Oliver has to swiftly duck around a corner to avoid getting shot. A barrage of bullets flies past him, and he angles the arrow loaded in his bow to show the reflections of his attackers around the corner. Choosing the man he marks as his biggest threat, he reaches around the corner and hits him in the chest too. He is not sure if that guy is dead. Aiming around a corner will never be as accurate as a straight shot like those he had taken for his first two targets. In any case, the guy is down and there are only three still shooting.

When the bullets stop coming, Oliver is not stupid enough to take it as a sign that he can round the corner and attack again, and the footfalls approaching him confirm his that his instincts are correct. He is prepared for the gun that sprays bullets around the corner, as well as the man that follows them and has already ducked down to safely avoid the spray. Rolling, he brings the shooter to the ground and has him bent back over his arm in a swift series of movements. He tightens his grip and pulls, feeling vertebrae separating beneath his hands as the man goes limp in his arms. Dead.

Shrieks are coming from the girls’ cells by now, the sound of gunfire having terrified them even more, so Oliver rolls out from the corner, the other two guards are not expecting him and he shoots, hitting a leg. Sprinting forwards, he both ensures that his fourth target is fully dealt with before finishing off the sixth and seventh with two quick shots. As he turns around, intending to release the girls, he freezes. The sounds of one girl have made their way closer to him, and he sees the guard that he knocked out holding a gun to her head. Before he makes any moves or demands, Oliver is drawing his bow and there is an arrow through his eye.

The girl is sobbing, but Oliver has no time to spend dealing with her tears. He runs over, ignoring the way that she flinches at his movement.

“Listen to me. I need you to get all of the other girls to follow me. Can you do that?” the only response that he gets is a whimper. “Are you listening to me? If you want to escape you have to do what I tell you to.” That gets her attention, and she nods before going back into the room that she was pulled from. As she murmurs to her companions, he opens the other two doors containing prisoners. They are all dressed only in lingerie, clearly freezing and petrified at the sight of him, but he is saved from having to explain his presence to them by the first girl entering each room behind him and explaining that he is there to help.

He leads the group of seventeen girls ranging from maybe twenty-seven to, disgustingly, twelve years old. The girl that he had first saved, who cannot be more than twenty herself, follows him the closest. They encounter four more men as he leads them to a back exit, all of whom he quickly takes out. By the time he has the door open, more than half of them are crying, but the first girl seems to be holding it together, so he turns to her and hands her a phone. “Call nine-one-one, tell them where you have come from. The address is in the phone’s notes. Tell them what is happening and that they need to come quickly with ambulances for the girls and the police. Go now. Run straight forwards from here.”

“You’re not coming with us?” she blinks up at him, and he cannot help but imagine what it would have been like if Felicity were one of these girls. If _Thea_ – fifteen year old Thea – had been here. It makes him shiver with fear, before he pushes those thoughts, the feelings away and the tremors become ones of rage.

“No. There is still something I have to deal with here.” He shuts the door, leaving her to follow the others.

He runs back inside, listening carefully. He can hear the auction starting. Some guy is making a speech and nobody is screaming or running which means that, as he had predicted, they have been too deep in celebrating this event to hear the sounds of his fight. Climbing up into the rafters allows him an uninhibited view of the party. Buchinsky is sat on what can only be described as a throne. There is a catwalk taking up a significant portion of the floor, and Buchinsky is positioned on a raised dais next to that catwalk, perfectly set up for leering at and touching the unwilling girls that would have been dragged along this stage.

Just as Oliver is taking aim, someone runs out, yelling about the girls having escaped and the police drawing near. The ensuing chaos causes Oliver to lose his shot, and Buchinsky is getting away. Seeing no other choice, he drops down to the floor, causing more screams from the crowd and yells “Lester Buchinsky, you have _failed this city_.”

He darts forwards, trying to get a better shot but Buchinsky is vanishing behind a wall of black suits and they are raising their guns and then people are going down all around him and- searing pain pierces through his stomach. He stumbles forwards a few more steps before he realises that he will not be winning his fight today. He finds the strength to raise his bow and release a grappling arrow out of the door, allowing it to pull him out and onto the nearest rooftop.

The pain is blinding, he barely knows where he is going or what he is doing. All he knows is that he has to _get away_, to get to _safety_. By the time he realises where he has instinctually made his way to, he is barely able to stand, let alone move but he manages to pick a lock on the third floor and staggers inside.

Inside, it is silent. He cannot feel the presence of anybody else nearby.

As he opens his mouth, considering whether to call out or not, his vision goes black and he crashes to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder where Oliver went to find safety?
> 
> Such a mystery... ;)


	6. That broken piece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity returns home to a big surprise. This is going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here we go! This is a big one, prepare yourselves. If anyone gets squeamish with blood or anything, there is an amateur surgery scene in this chapter, so if you don't want to read that, skip from the line '"Okay. Okay. This is going to hurt."' to 'Oliver is looking rather pale'. The rest of it should be fine as it's not descriptive like that section is.
> 
> Also, for anyone who has not read any of my one-shots this week, I have been having MAJOR internet issues, so have been unable to watch any of Crisis. Please be kind and don't spoil anything! I'm going home tomorrow so hopefully will be able to catch up over the weekend.
> 
> Let's get started!

**Chapter VI – That broken piece**

Felicity storms out of the taxi as soon as it arrives at her place. She is furious. Today, her old boss, who she now technically is a colleague of, rather than a subordinate, had totally hindered the progress that she had been making. She is sure that it is all petty, he does not like that she, a woman, no longer has to report to him, so he is lashing out and trying to prove that she is incapable in her new position when he knows full well that she could do both her job and his with her hands tied behind her back.

It has set her back by hours and forced her to go to the head of computer sciences for back up to fix it, and now she has missed her dinner and is arriving home well past midnight. Being hangry is no joke. She fumbles with her keys in the dark, struggling to find the lock in the pitch black. Finally managing to match lock and key together, she pushes her way inside, not bothering to turn on the hallway lights as she makes her way up to her third floor home by memory alone.

There is another struggle with her own door before she finally makes it into her living room. Eyes drooping, she shuffles her way towards her bedroom, dropping her bag on the sofa as she goes. Just as she is shucking off her jacket, her foot connects with a solid object that was _definitely_ not there that morning, and she goes crashing to the floor.

There is a grunt as she lands on top of something hard, and warm, and… moving. She jumps up and leaps towards the light switch, flipping it on as she rounds back on the intruder. It is the Vigilante. Oliver _fracking_ Queen is in her house. Oh- she just _landed on top of Oliver Queen_.

_That is_ so_ not how I imagined landing on top of Oliver Queen._

“Not how I imagined having you on top of me either, Felicity.” Oh. _That was out loud_. Oliver shuffles back, wincing as he does so. She looks at him again, “You’re bleeding!”

“I don’t need to be told that.”

“You need a hospital.”

“Felicity.” Was that a smile? “I’m one of the most famous dead men in the city. I’m not going to a hospital.”

“You’re _bleeding_!” she repeats, screeching.

“It’s okay.” Felicity’s splutter interrupts him, “Do you have a first aid kit? Or a sewing kit?”

“Oliver! You have been shot through the stomach! This is not a first aid situation. It’s not even second aid material! This is like third aid- fourth aid even. And why are you smiling at me? This is not funny. You’re _half dead_ in my living room- I don’t think that there’s a carpet cleaner in the world who just cleans up blood without making some sort of report and-”

“Felicity. _Please_.” His eyes beg for her to do as he is asking, and she is powerless to resist.

Turning on her heel, she finds her first aid and sewing kits with a speed that surprises even her. She is sure that she has never moved so fast in her life, but she is back at Oliver’s side in moments. He is half passed out again, having exhausted himself removing his hood and his shirt, and is muttering at her that he is _fine_ and she has no need to _worry_, but one look at the weeping hole in his stomach is all that it takes for Felicity to know that they are going to need all of the disinfectant that they can find.

By the time that she has found the vodka that she keeps for _really_ bad days, he has wiped up the blood around his _gunshot wound_, revealing that it was not a through-and-through. Felicity gulps, knowing that there is a bullet inside him. And she is going to have to get it out.

She pours vodka into three glasses, filling one almost to the top which earns her a bemused look from Oliver, who is holding gauze from the first aid kit to his stomach.

“I think that’ll kill you.” He smirks. Felicity glares at him.

“It’s not for drinking. It’s there for me to sterilise the tweezers and needle that I’m about to stick in your body.” She sidesteps the need to explain her unintentional innuendo. “Adding alcohol to the surface will coagulate the protein in any cells and therefore will help to ensure that all microorganisms are killed as the flame that I have will not burn hot enough to reliably do it alone.” Oliver looks suitably schooled. “The smaller ones are for drinking.” She gives one to Oliver, “To numb the pain.” He begrudgingly drinks it. The third glass quickly disappears down Felicity’s mouth.

“Woah!” Oliver protests, “Slow down, you still have to perform surgery here.”

“And I’ll do a much better job if my hands aren’t shaking.” Her glare silences him.

The tweezers and needle dip into the full glass until they are submerged. Felicity leaves them and goes to clean her hands, before grabbing a fresh towel from her kitchen. After igniting a match, she gingerly removes the tweezers before touching the two together. Once the flame extinguishes, she turns back to Oliver, “Okay, so I’m going to have to wash out the wound, and then pull out the bullet. Okay. I have some hydrogen peroxide in my first aid kit, and I know that it can cause more tissue damage but I think we’re past the stage where that is the main concern, and the bigger concern is infection so I will use it, but I don’t have a lot so it’s going to have to wait until just before I stitch you up and the vodka will have to do for the rest of it because-”

“Felicity. It’s okay. Just do it.” Oliver’s tone is gentle as he hands her the vodka bottle.

“Okay. Okay. This is going to hurt.” As she tips the bottle over his stomach, she winces and her eyes squeeze shut. She feels Oliver’s hand wrap around hers and guide her back over his injury, and it causes her eyes to shoot open. There is a grimace on his face, his jaw is clearly clenched and the muscles – so many muscles – in his abdomen are extremely tense, but he is not making a single noise in spite of the considerable pain that he must be in. It is admirable to say the least, but it also breaks her heart. What sort of pain must he have been through that he is able to stay perfectly silent when pouring alcohol over an open bullet wound?

The bottle is half empty by the time the wound is clean enough that most of the blood has been washed out. It gives her a view far clearer than she ever wanted to have inside his stomach, but she can see that the bullet is only an inch or so inside him, and the tweezers should be able to dig it out. Sucking in a fortifying breath, she digs in. There is already fresh blood pouring out again, and her hands are covered immediately as the metal abrades the weak tissue but she finally meets resistance, and allows the prongs to open. There is a horrific squelch as she has to push open the hole to get the tweezers around the bullet, but she manages to grab it, and worm it out. Rivulets of blood follow her exit, and she fights back a gag as she puts the towel over him, pressing deep. The flow slows quicker than before, and she does not know if that is a good thing or a bad thing but Oliver is looking rather pale.

“You’re going to have to clean it out again.” It’s the first sound that he has made since she began. “Make sure there’s no debris left. She gulps, but does as he has said, luckily there is nothing else left that she can see. “Are you okay?” he asks her.

She barks out a laugh. “You’re asking _me_ if _I’m_ okay.” He smiles, “You are one crazy man, Mr Queen.”

“And you’re remarkable, Felicity Smoak.” Her breath catches as she meets his eyes, he looks… almost enamoured with her. She shakes the thought out of her head, breaking their eye contact. There is no way – he barely even knows her.

Before she realises what he is doing, he has sat up and has the hydrogen peroxide in hand. “I’m going to make sure that anything that’s got in there is dead, you’re going to prepare the needle and thread and then sew me up. Can you do that?” he asks. She only nods. They work quickly, and quietly, the only words they speak are when Oliver guides her in how to stitch him up. It is the scariest thing that Felicity has ever done, and she is constantly worried about how much blood Oliver has lost because there is a lot just in her room. How much had he lost before he even got here? Eventually, though, they are done and his stomach is all cleaned up, with a gauze taped to his side.

It is then that she realises that she is sat straddling his lap. She blushes. “Thank you.” His voice is barely above a whisper, it feels intimate, especially when he reaches up to brush a loose hair behind her ear, fingertips skimming over her cheek. She blinks, frozen for a second before leaping up. “Yeah, well, I always wondered how I’d react if if I found my boss shot and bleeding inside my house. Not that I helped because you’re my boss! You’re not even my actual boss. You’re just their not-dead relative. And I’d help anyone who was shot and bleeding in my house.” She busies herself cleaning up the blood and debris from her impromptu pseudo-hospital set-up, not wanting him to see her cheeks, which must be completely red.

“You saved my life today, and my identity. Even though you didn’t have to. You were amazing.”

The burning feeling tells her that the red is everywhere, she needs a minute. “I’ll just go and make up the spare room for you.”

“Felicity, I can’t stay in your spare room. I can’t stay here. I’m very grateful for everything that you have done, but it can’t go any further. You can’t be involved again.”

“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said!” she yells, “And I’ve looked you up, you’ve said some pretty stupid things. Whether you like it or not, _Oliver_, I’m involved and there is nothing that you can do to change that or to stop me from helping you now. So you’re staying in my house tonight, and every night from now until either you find a real bed of your own or you decide that your stay will be indefinite because it’s ridiculous to sleep on the floor of a cold and dirty steel factory when you have another option, especially when you have an open wound.”

“Fine.” Despite knowing him for only a short amount of time, Felicity knows how bad he must be feeling for him to have given up so easily. Her loud voice is scary, but Oliver Queen is maybe the most stubborn man alive.

She makes him drink before anything else, knowing that he needs to replace the fluids that he just lost. She also knows that he must have lost a lot of blood sugar. Ideally, she would be able to give him a transfusion, but she has no blood for that and has no way of knowing if their blood types match. Even if they do, she does not have the equipment. She cannot even set up an IV line, so the sugary mint chip ice cream that she gives him is the best option that she has. Even if it does incite another small argument, and he insists that she has some once she admits that she has not eaten in hours either.

It takes a considerable amount of effort, but they manage to get him up off the floor. She almost collapses under the weight that his arm is exerting on her shoulder, but they are able to shuffle to her spare room. They make it to the bed before his eyes roll back and his legs crumple.

“Oliver!” she wriggles her way from underneath him, where he had fallen to the bed. “Oliver!” he is not responding. Frantic, she reaches for his neck to take his pulse. It is there but weak. Her heart, however, is pounding out a strong rhythm and panic courses through her veins. She has no idea what the right thing to do is. He is still breathing, his heart is beating and there is no sign of internal bleeding or of his stitches having torn but he is out cold. At a loss, she heaves his legs onto the bed, leaving him flat on his back. The way he is sprawled out might have been comedic if she was not terrified that he could be dying.

The only options that are left are to call an ambulance or to wait it out. Calling an ambulance could save his life if he truly is about to die, but he will be furious when he wakes up and it would bring down a storm once the doctors ID him, and if he is actually just passed out, recovering not dying, then he would lose it. On the other hand, if he is dying and she does nothing, she will never be able to forgive herself. Felicity triple checks Oliver’s vitals. He seems fine, weak but she thinks that the only reason he is out cold is because of the exhaustion and blood loss. Not trusting her own judgement, she does some light hacking into Starling General’s mainframe and pulls up files from gunshot victims. After several hours of analysis, she has decided that Oliver is almost definitely fine, and she has done everything that she can given the circumstances. There is the possibility of cauterising the wound, but she _desperately_ wants to avoid that.

*************************

She settles into a chair in the corner of the room, knowing that she is never going to be able to sleep. She debates changing into something more comfortable, and freshening up but the idea of leaving Oliver when he is in genuine mortal danger gives her heart palpitations so she stays put. She is going to have to call in sick to work. She has never done that before.

She has been sat motionless for three hours, unable to take her eyes off him when he shoots up, gasping, before wincing and clutching at his stomach, over the gauze. It is completely irrational, and involuntary but Felicity bursts into tears. She is not usually a crier, but the emotion of the night, and the fact that _he is not dead_ overwhelms her, flowing out in body-wracking sobs. “Felicity?” Oliver turns to her, where she is curled up in her armchair. “Felicity!” he jumps up, flinching as he does so, but he still rushes over to her, “Are you okay? Are you hurt? What’s wrong, Felicity?”

“You- you’re o-okay.” She sniffles, “You’re okay. I-I-I was so w-worried. I-I thought t-th-that you’d d-d-died.” There is a shocked look on his face as he looks at her.

“You’re crying because of me?” he is kneeling before her.

“N-no. I’m crying bec-c-cause you’re okay, a-and I was s-s-so s-s-scared that y-you’d die a-and it’d b-b-be m-my fault b-b-because I didn’t take you t-to the h-ho-hospital.”

He pauses, looking like he has no idea what to do before he lunges forwards, scooping her into his arms and carrying her to the bed. They stay there for a long time, him just sat there, arms tight around her shivering body and her clinging to him, still shaking as all the emotion that she had felt sat there, waiting for him to wake up comes pouring out. He is exhausted and does not know what to say or do, so he just holds her until the shaking stops. She has been still for a while, and her grip much looser by the time he looks down at her. His heart skips a beat. It may mostly be the fact that she has been up all night and has been through an inordinate amount of stress, but somehow she feels comfortable enough with him that she has fallen asleep in his arms.

She would be much more comfortable in her own bed, and he knows that, but the mere thought of carrying her all the way to her own room, light as she is, is making his side scream in pain. His own eyes are drooping, he is barely able to keep awake himself so, against his better judgement, he lets his heart take over and slides back onto the bed. Holding her curled up in his arms, her head nestled into his shoulder as he settles back into the pillows feels like a dream come true. Somehow this woman has him all twisted up inside, and all she has done so far is yell at him.

He does not know how long he has been asleep. He has no idea what time it is, and really needs to leave before Felicity becomes any more tangled up in his messed up life but his stomach is burning, he is half asleep himself and he cannot even fathom letting her go right now. Settling in, he pulls up the throw from the bottom of the bed and draws it around them, ensuring that Felicity is completely covered before giving in and drifting to sleep.

*************************

When Oliver wakes up, he is warmer than he has been for more than three years. Sunshine-feathers tickle his nose where it is buried right into the top of her head, the blonde locks ruffled in a deceptively innocent way. Their bodies press together seductively, his hips creating a perfect hollow for her ass, her body nestled in between his arms, back moulded in the exact shape of his chest. She smells like home, the sweet coconut-vanilla scent of her hair a settling presence that brings him comfort. It is overwhelming, this feeling. He is literally holding his dreams within his grasp, and yet he knows that he has to let go.

Before the arousal that is stirring can develop beyond his control, he carefully extricates himself from Felicity and the bed that they share. His side is still on fire, and sharp pain tugs with every movement but it is far from the worst agony that he has ever had to deal with. It certainly does not compare to the pain that the thought of leaving her, of never seeing her again brings him.

He is still dressed in his leathers from the waist down, so he only has to collect his hood and his bow before he leaves. The shirt that he was wearing must be beyond redemption at this point, but there is no way that he can leave the rest of his stuff behind.

Just as he is gingerly pulling the hood over his head, he hears bare feet padding towards him and the tentative “Oliver?” that leaves her lips makes him slump as he turns to face her. “What are you doing?” the uncertainty in her voice breaks him.

“I can’t stay here, Felicity. It’s too dangerous, I can’t let you get involved in this.”

“That’s such bullshit, Oliver!” she yells, going from naught to sixty in no time whatsoever.

“Excuse me?” he stalks up to her, his own dander rising to meet hers. He knows that he is being unreasonable, that her reaction is justified, but he cannot help himself when it comes to her.

“You can’t spout crap about not getting me involved after you just came crawling straight to me the second that you need help! You can’t tell me that it’s too dangerous after you slept with me last night! I mean – not _slept with me_, slept with me. _Slept_ with me. I know it sounds like the same thing, but it means something different in my head. But that’s not the point! We literally had this conversation last night and you agreed that I was right. You said that you’d stay and let me help you.” Her voice trails off, he is not sure if she meant to say the last part out loud.

“Felicity.” He says softly, unable to stay mad. With a finger under her chin, he prompts her to look up at him shyly, “You have no idea… you… you can’t possibly know how much I… It’s not safe. I cannot run the risk of the people who I’m fighting finding out who you are. I can’t risk them following me back here, to your home. _I’m dangerous_, Felicity. And you work for my family’s company. I can’t ask you to go into work every day and just… not mention that their long-lost son is alive and living with you, it’s too much to even ask you to not tell them that I’m alive. It’s not fair to you, and knowing me is not safe for you either. I couldn’t… I couldn’t live with myself if something were to happen to you because of me. Please don’t make me risk that.” He is begging at this point, three years of torture and he had never truly begged but Felicity breaks down his walls without even trying.

Felicity looks deep into Oliver’s eyes for several moments, “Oliver, have you considered the possibility that someone already knows that I know you? Anyone could have followed you back last night, you were half dead.”

Oliver shakes his head in denial, unable to consider such a thing, “No. There’s no way. I would _never_ let that happen.”

“You can’t know that, Oliver.”

“I can- I-”

“No. Let’s imagine that – wherever you were – there was someone as skilled as you at sneaking around. I’m sure that you’re excellent at noticing when you’re being followed, Oliver, but there is no way that the bullet wound and the loss of blood didn’t affect you, and therefore there is a possibility that you were followed.”

Oliver’s jaw clenches, he looks like he is either going to start breaking things or burst into tears, “I still can’t risk it. Even if that were the case, I have more than one enemy, Felicity, and risking any more of them finding you is not worth it. There is _nothing_ in this world that could justify putting you in more danger.”

Felicity’s eyes squint, a mixture of anger and determination darkening her face, “You can’t stop me. I’ll help you with or without your permission, I don’t _need_ it. I’ve hacked before, I’ll do it again. And then what, _Oliver_? If someone finds out that it’s me feeding you information would you rather be sleeping on a dirty floor in some steel factory, miles from where I’ll be in danger or would you rather be in a nice, comfy bed, one door away?”

His mouth gapes open as he tries to find some other excuse. As hard as it felt to be walking away from her this morning, he knows that it will be infinitely harder to be living one door – _one door_ – away from her. So close, and yet so far. But there are no more excuses, anything more that he might say will only upset her and he cannot fathom doing that to her anymore, so he simply grabs up the few items that he has with him, and marches back to the spare room. Felicity follows, looking like she is going to say something more but then he throws his shirt to the floor and cuts across her, “I will stay with you. I will accept your help. You will not come to the Foundry again. It’s going to be difficult enough ensuring that nobody finds out about our… arrangement as it is, I can’t have you endangering yourself further by going there.” His eyes soften from Antarctic ice to Atlantic storm, “Please.”

“You have yourself a deal, Mr. Queen.” She grins.

The grin that he returns to her is far more sly, “Oh, and Felicity?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“I’ll be paying for your rent.”

“What? No way! You’re my guest.”

“I’m a billionaire’s child with his own self-made and sizable bank account. There is no way that I’m letting you pay when I could do it so much easier.”

“I don’t need your help Oliver! And there’s this thing called income that I have and you don’t. If anyone can afford it, it’s me.” She huffs.

“It’s not about you needing my help, Felicity. I’m sure you can take care of yourself just fine. It’s about the fact that I could spend the next fifty years paying for your rent and the figures in my account would barely change. It’s about the fact that you’re taking a huge risk for me and I don’t want you to have to pay my way through that as well as everything else. It’s about the fact that I _want_ to.”

“I can’t accept that, Oliver.”

He hesitates, “Okay. What if… what if we split your rent? Both pay half. That’s fair. We’re both living here, you could still kick me out whenever you want. We’ll be roommates. It’ll be fun.”

Her brow crinkles for a moment, “Okay. Yeah. I can live with that. But I won’t be kicking you out. You can stay here as long as you want or need to.”

“Thank you.” This time the grin is genuine, “But I’ve seen you trying to cook, so food will be on me from now on.”

Her indignant protest makes him laugh. It _makes him laugh_.

*************************

By the end of the weekend, Oliver is regretting having agreed to let Felicity help him. She is taking the job very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that she has not allowed him to get back out into the field and onto Buchinsky’s tail once in the days that he has been with her. She insists that he has to _heal and rest_. It is preposterous.

She also seems to have taken it upon herself to catch him up with all of the developments that the last three years have brought forth in the worlds of technology, politics, science and even pop culture. He is introduced to smart phones, the first black president, the how’s and why’s of Blu-Ray versus DVD. She catches him up on the _Harry Potter_ franchise, gasping when he tells her that he did not know that there even _were_ movies, and nearly vibrating with excitement as she talks about the imminent release of the first part of the final one. She groans as she laments ‘Hollywood’s need to split every final instalment into two parts to exploit the viewers for profit.’ after he questions why there are going to be eight movies, when he remembers reading the seventh, _final_ novel shortly before boarding the _Gambit_. She even introduces him to _Iron Man_, and tells him about the sequel that came out earlier that year, explaining the post-credit scene and the possibility of _The Avengers_ with a passion that only she could possess, before apologising and putting on _The Incredible Hulk_.

It is around the time that she squeals and starts mouthing the lines of that British series she adores – _Doctor Who_ – late on Sunday night, tucked under his arm, where she had hidden after a scary moment in the show that he realises he is probably in love with her already. The thought hits him hard. He should be hating every moment of this. Trapped in the house of someone that he, technically, barely knows and watching all these movies and shows that _Ollie Queen _would not have been caught dead watching. But he has loved every second. He may not have said much out loud himself, but listening to her, hearing her speak, her kindness, her wit, her intelligence, it has been the best two days of his life so far, and it has only made him care for her more. _Want_ her more.

Oliver Queen is in love with Felicity Smoak.

But he can never tell her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little babies in love!


	7. these secrets and lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver settles into his new life and his new routine, living with Felicity. Then he makes some poor decisions. Is anyone surprised?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Happy Sunday, think of me enjoying the fact that in four days I get to go home for the holidays!
> 
> I finally got to watch parts 1 and 2 of Crisis, but not part 3 yet, so I'm still dying.
> 
> Anywho, here are some clueless babies in love!

**Chapter VII – these secrets and lies**

The day after his revelation, Felicity returns to work. It is almost a shock to his system, her leaving him after two full days spent in one another’s company. Usually, Oliver cannot wait to get away from people. They ask too many questions, they constantly have expectations for him, from him and it is just generally stressful for him to be around, but not his- not Felicity. Not once had she expected anything from him. Even as he had remained mostly silent, she had just filled the silence with babble and had not asked any questions or pressured him into anything. He had just… relaxed.

Now that she is gone, he is almost at a loss for what to do, but quickly shakes himself out of it. He knows that she will be mad if she knows that he is planning to go back on mission, but two days is far more than he has ever given himself to recover before and he has a job to do.

Clad in his hood, he slips out after her, guarding her as he always does on her way to work. It is another thing that he knows that she would be unhappy about if she ever knew, but he cannot let her go alone, especially not now. Once she is safely ensconced within the walls of QC, he makes his way back to the Foundry.

His first task, as much as he would rather get back on the case, is to move all of his general items to Felicity’s place. He leaves his training equipment, his arrows and anything Vigilante-related behind. Just because he actually now has a place to live, does not mean that he is going to change his base of operations, but the clothes, sleeping mat and more personal items all go in a bag destined for the closet in his new room.

As it turns out, he has very little in the way of personal items so moving in does not take very long. It leaves him plenty of time to train after his school run with Thea. With stitches still pulling at the skin of his stomach, certain exercises are much more difficult than he would like to admit. The salmon ladder becomes obviously difficult as the skin stretches with each landing, he cannot work from the bars in the ceiling without risking pulling something and any abdominal exercise, though he loathes to acknowledge it, sends screeching pain through him. It is with great annoyance that he settles for simple archery practice for the day.

He will build up to more tomorrow, but he has plans for the evening that he is not willing to risk missing.

After several hours, he spots the time and rushes to the shower at Felicity’s – _his_ – home, to make himself presentable. He carefully selects his largest jumper, pulling the hood over his head and ensuring that his entire face is in shadow, pulling the strands of his uncut hair across his face to conceal his features and sets out to the nearest convenience store.

*************************

It takes a significant amount of googling, memory searching and careful selection, but he finally feels satisfied with what he has got, and he heads back to prepare.

He quickly encounters resistance when he realises that Felicity’s kitchen contains almost nothing in the way of cookware or appliances. There is a measure of comfort that he takes in that information as it assures him that she is in no danger of poisoning herself with her self-admitted hideous skills in the kitchen, but it sets him back when he has to run down to a store to stock up. He had hoped to have everything ready and perfect for when she got back, but it seems like there will be a slight delay.

By the time he is ready, his brand new apron is covered in some mixture of flour, oil and meat but he has managed to finish everything that needed doing before Felicity gets back and it fills him with a strange sense of accomplishment that he is not sure he has experienced… ever, really.

He still has to dash like a madman to hang up the apron and grab his hoodie.

*************************

Felicity leaves the office at maybe the earliest time she ever has. There is something about the excitement of knowing that Oliver will be at home that causes for her to spend the entire day restless and eager to return for the first time in her life. She does not leave early but she is out by the time that she is actually contacted to be done at: five-thirty.

For some strange reason, there are butterflies fluttering around her stomach as she steps out into the waning sunlight. She does not spot anything until she is stepping forwards to cross the street but directly ahead is a tall man with shoulders so broad that she is shocked he has ever been able to walk through a door head-on and a dark hood hiding his face.

By all means, she should be terrified to feel the dark eyes of such a man boring into her, but all she can feel is safety as she basks in the familiar gaze. It is with the utmost confidence that she strides towards him, a smile gracing her lips.

“Hey. To what do I owe this pleasure?” she bounces to a halt, craning her neck to look into his eyes.

Warmth cracks through ice, “Making sure you get home safe.”

That gives Felicity pause, “Did you follow me this morning?” before he has the chance to formulate a response, “Have you followed me before? Is that how you knew to save me when we met? How often do you do this?”

“I…” the look in her eyes seems to make him give up, though it may be fear of her loud voice, “Yes. I was _protecting_ you when you were attacked, but I failed you. I lost my focus and you got hurt because of it. I should have seen it coming – should have stopped him before he got a chance to get near you.”

“Hey. Oliver, you didn’t fail me or whatever it is that you’re blaming yourself for. You saved me and that’s all that matters. The only thing that you have to explain is why the hell you were following me.”

“I- I saw you, and you were_ light_ and _good_, and I had to protect you. Every day, I guard you on your way to work and then I watch Thea as she goes to school, and then I take her home and I make sure you’re safe at night.” His honesty shines through his eyes, imploring her to understand.

“You- you do that for me and your sister? What about your mother or your ex – Laurel, right?”

“Just you and Thea.”

“Oh.” It isn’t often that Felicity Smoak is rendered speechless. “Okay.”

After a stretch of silence, the two of them simply looking at one another, Oliver clears his throat. “I thought that – if you’re willing – I would walk you home properly today.”

“Okay.”

*************************

Nobody disturbs their quiet walk back, not even the two of them. They walk side by side in a comfortable silence, happy to bask in one another’s company. Once they arrive at the townhouse, Oliver holds the door for her and ushers her in.

It is like stepping into another world. He has tidied up her living room and set the small table next to the door with plates and cutlery and… candles. She can see pots and pans through the gap to her kitchen that look full of something.

“I, uh, I cooked us dinner. Wanted to say thank you.” Oliver mumbles, looking bashful.

“I have so many questions.”

“Can they wait until we’re eating?”

“Okay.”

“Five minutes.”

Oliver slides to the island, lifting up one of the larger pans and placing it on the stove, before turning it on. Felicity is caught between wanting to get comfortable and seated, and wanting to watch Oliver who looks oddly at home – _cooking_.

She opts for the former, pulling off her flats and jacket. Normally, she would leave them somewhere but Oliver has worked so hard to make the house spotless that she actually hangs up her bag and jacket and lines her flats up with the other shoes, noting that three pairs of men’s shoes have joined her collection. Her heart flutters.

Finally ready, she flits back to his beautiful set up, unsure of where he wants her. It is then that he breezes past her, steaming bowl in hand. He carefully places it down and gestures for her to sit before pushing her chair in and rushing back to his work station. The soup is presented like some sort of Michelin star chef’s work. It looks like a noodle soup, hearty and rich and it smells like heaven. Oliver returns with another bowl in one hand and a plate of buttered bread in another.

“It’s a Russian soup.” He explained, “I wanted to surprise you, but then realised that I didn’t know if you had any dietary requirements or preferences, so I made it with chicken and hoped that you wouldn’t be vegetarian or anything, but if you are then I’ve made the entrée with a vegetarian option too.”

“Wait. The entrée? This isn’t the entrée?”

“No. It’s the appetiser.”

“How much did you make?”

“Appetiser, entrée, dessert. And it took longer than expected, considering that you owned exactly nothing as far as kitchen utensils go.” His lips twitch with the ghost of a smile. She blushes. “Eat. Then ask questions.”

She digs into the soup. Her involuntary moan reverberates around the room. Oliver’s eyes flash with something unknown at the sound. “Where did you learn to cook like this? You were a billionaire, didn’t you have your own chef or something?”

“It was actually our maid – and chef – who taught me. Raisa, that’s her name. She’s the housekeeper at the Mansion, she was basically another mother to Thea and I. Whenever Mom and Dad went away at the same time, she’d look after us and she’d take me down into the kitchen and teach me how to cook. She used to say that everyone should know how to cook, even if they were rich enough to pay for someone else to do it for them. She was the only person who never let me get away with anything. These dishes were all traditional in her family, passed down from generation to generation, which is why they’re all Russian.”

“Wow. She sounds awesome.”

“She is.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Yes.” He pauses, “I know that she’s still happy and safe though.” He looks lost for a moment, memories and emotions flashing in the hidden depths of his eyes. She clears her throat.

“I’m not vegetarian, by the way. I could never live without meat. And by meat I mean edible meat! And by edible meat I mean the flesh of animals that are grown and harvested by the agricultural industry! My favourite is a Big Belly Buster. Have you ever had Big Belly Burger? It’s the best. Honestly, I would choose Big Belly as my last meal if I could. It’s _so_ good. But of course you haven’t ever had Big Belly, you’ve never eaten anything that wasn’t made by either your maid or a Michelin starred chef. Not that that’s a bad thing! If I could afford a chef I would totally hire one, I’m hopeless in the kitchen. And you do make excellent food yourself. You could be a chef, if you wanted.” She blushes, embarrassed as he chuckles. “Uh – I am Jewish though, so only kosher for me, please.”

He graciously brushes past her babble, “Is cow kosher?” he looks worried.

“Yes.” She laughs, “But not pork, so no bacon for me, unfortunately.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“This is delicious though, truly. I have no idea how you do it. Raisa taught you well.”

Another bashful smile twitches at the corners of his lips.

*************************

Felicity devours the soup in record time, leaving Oliver still with half a bowl as she swallows her last piece of potato. They exchange only a little conversation as they eat – Felicity’s mouth is far too full to make the conversation polite in any case – and she makes sure to soak up every last drop of moisture left in her bowl with bread as she waits for him to finish.

He gets up, grabbing her bowl as he goes once he is ready and makes his way back into the kitchen. “Would you like the meat entrée, the veggie version or a mix?” He asks. Not one to pass up on the opportunity for any food, Felicity replies “Both.”. He returns a few minutes later with two plates of what look like miniature calzones.

“Pizza?” she gives him a confused frown.

“Baked _piroshki_.” He corrects her, “They’re sort of like pies. It’s a mixture of beef mince and vegetables encased in dough and baked, though you can also fry them. The veggie ones are cheese and onion.”

Felicity bites into one. She almost melts. Somehow, they are even better than the soup. “You have a talent, Mister Queen. And not just for shooting arrows into people.”

A huff of laughter escapes him, “But I am talented at that too? That’s what you’re saying right?”

“For sure. You need to work on some decision making, but otherwise you’re the full package. And by package, I mean that you’re like the perfect man, I’m not talking about _your_ _package_. Not that I’ve thought about your package. Or that you’re the perfect man! I mean, I’m sure that-”

“I know what you meant, Felicity.” His crystal eyes dance in the candlelight as he looks up at her.

“Oh.” She breathes, heart stuttering for the hundredth time that night. Their gazes hold for an eternity before she blinks and the spell is broken. Looking back down at his plate, he clears his throat, seemingly about to say something but then he shakes his head minutely and shoves a full piroshki into his mouth like a gag.

*************************

They finish eating in silence, neither quite knowing what to say to the other so saying nothing at all. Felicity hears pots clattering as Oliver cleans up their dishes, she almost goes to him but hesitates, unsure, and before she can figure out what to do, he returns with a full cake on a platter. Her mouth gapes open. “You made a cake?”

“I made a layered honey cake.” He sets another plate in front of her, and slices into the cake. Inside, it is striped. Layers of golden, gorgeous cake thins are separated by white frosting just designed to make Felicity’s mouth water. All of a sudden, she finds room in her previously stuffed stomach for a slice of the delight in front of her.

“Raisa really taught you all this?” She says between bites, trying to supress her delight.

“And many other things, yes. Though she never taught me how to do laundry.” Some memory surfaces behind his eyes as he says this.

“But you can do laundry now.”

“Yes. Maybe I’ll tell you about it, one day.” He does not realise it, but he has just let her know that he plans to stick around and tell her about some of his past. He is making _plans for the future_ based on the assumption that he will still be in contact with her. Maybe even still living with her. It is a lot to read from just one sentence, but Felicity gets the impression that Oliver Queen is not the kind of man who would make such a statement without intending, on some level, to follow through on his promise. She smiles behind a mouthful of cake.

*************************

That night, as Felicity climbs into bed, still able to hear the tap running in her bathroom, where Oliver is brushing his teeth, she allows herself to drift to sleep with thoughts of a possible future where Oliver is in contact with his family again, and the broken look that lingers on his face has smoothed out, and he looks at her like she is his whole world.

She does not realise that the look she dreams of is identical to the one that he gave her all throughout dinner.

And it does not cross her mind that she may have just been on her first date in over a year.

*************************

Two weeks pass in amicable coexistence. Felicity continues to work, she comes home at night to either a home cooked meal or a plated takeaway, including an order from Big Belly Burger the first night after their dinner. Oliver returns to his routine. The only adjustment that he has to make is to ensure that he is at home with food by the time Felicity finishes work, and that she is fast asleep by the time he sneaks out again.

The two of them spend their evenings together, and Oliver has to fight his instincts every night as they sit together on the sofa, watching television that he is loathe to admit that he is enjoying. Every time she curls up next to him, his arm twitches with the urge to pull her into his body. Every time she smiles, he has to fight the need to kiss her. Every time she falls asleep next to him and her head drops onto his chest, he has to force himself to pick her up and carry her to her bed because he knows that, if he lets himself, he will wrap his arms and his body around her and never let go.

He finds himself wanting to tell her things. She sits there and babbles about her day and her plans, telling him little things about herself and sharing her life with him and he just sits there in silence. Normally, this would be because he has nothing to contribute, nothing that he wants to share and no one that he wants to share it with. With her that is not the case, he wants to share so badly but he knows that he cannot. Anything that he tells her will send her running. Before the Island, he was an asshole. The kind of guy that Felicity would not look twice at and she would be right not to. After the Island, he has become a murderer. A liar, a _thief_, a torturer. He is the thing that goes bump in the night and no matter how many other criminals he takes down, nothing with wipe the blood away from his hands.

So he just sits there and listens and hopes that she never stops talking.

He tells her the bare minimum. How the _Queen’s Gambit_ went down in the storm. The choice that his father made. Meeting Yao Fei and Slade and Shado. He does not tell her the origins of any of the scars on his body, or about the scars that he placed on other peoples’ bodies. He talks about stopping Fyers, and finding Sara again only to then lose Shado, Slade and Sara once again in quick succession. He neglects to mention the choice that Ivo gave him, the blame that he places upon himself for Shado’s death, Slade’s descent and Sara’s eventual loss. He even tells her about Hong Kong. Tatsu, Maseo, Akio. The heartbreak of losing the little boy. But not what he did for Amanda. Not what he did _to_ General Shrieve. He tells her why he came home, but not why he will not go back to his house. He tells her about his mission, but not about the day that Waller’s mission brought her to him.

*************************

He goes out at night. Beating the streets for information on Buchinsky. It is obvious that Felicity could dig up the information without even leaving the house, but he wants her as far away from this as possible so he is taking full advantage of her belief that he is still recovering to get the job done without the need for her involvement. It is slow progress but he finally catches a lead on one of Buchinsky’s right-hand guys.

He heads to the location that he found with caution. Most people do not have the presence of mind to lie when they are in pain but there are a few who do – Oliver included – and he can never know which ones they are, so is always prepared for an ambush.

He does everything right. He sits and watches for more than an hour for any sign that they are expecting a visit from him. He plans his entry for the quickest, stealthiest infiltration possible and he comes up with plans B through Z in case of the unexpected. The first six guards are easy work, they drop like flies unaware of his presence. The seventh guy causes him issues.

Somehow, he is prepared and some sort of silent alarm is set off, alerting everyone to his presence. Before he realises what is happening, he is surrounded. There are too many of them for him to fight, and too many guns to risk making a move at any of them. He is boxed in.

He freezes, muscles coiled to make a move at any moment when suddenly there is a flare of bright light that floods the rooftop, blinding everyone in an instant. Oliver slams his eyes closed, allowing memory to take over as he twists and fires. There is a heartbeat in which nothing happens, it stretches out for so long that he is sure the bullet that will take his life is about to find him and then there is a tug, whipping him up just as there is a burst of fire along his body.

*************************

Felicity wakes up whilst it is still dark outside. Her throat is parched and the zipper from her skirt is cutting into her side. She must have fallen asleep on the sofa again. A shiver runs through her body at the thought of Oliver carrying her to her room and tucking her in.

She rolls out of bed, changing into her jammies before padding out to her kitchen for a drink. As usual, Oliver has cleaned up after the two of them. She is going to start thinking of him as her live-in maid if he keeps feeding her and cleaning as he has been. As she returns to her room, thirst quenched, she catches the bright light shining from under Oliver’s door. It is not like him to leave a light on, or to leave the curtains open. He does not sleep well when it is light. There is probably something in that – PTSD or the like – but Oliver is clearly not ready to face his mental demons in the way that he need to, the healthy way, so she will bide her time before bringing it up.

After a moment of internal debate, she decides to open the door, reasoning with herself that, if there is light in his bedroom, he has either had a nightmare (in which case she should comfort him) or he will eventually be awakened by it (so she should turn it off. He needs sleep, he is still in recovery.).

He is not there.

A rush of blood blocks out all other sound as she panics. Did he leave? Was he taken? Is he okay? Cold floods her body. Did he go out as the Vigilante? She rushes to check for his suit. It is gone. Fury takes over the fear from before. They agreed that she could help him. They agreed that he should _rest_. Now the idiot is out there, with no back up and a serious injury, fighting.

Deciding to check his safety as she waits to let out her loud voice in full force, she tracks his location to an apartment complex in the city. Further investigation reveals that the guy he is after is involved in some pretty awful stuff and is the direct subordinate than none other than Lester Buchinsky.

Just as she gains access to some nearby security cameras, a flood of armed guards swarms around the grainy Oliver on her monitor. She scans the area for anything that she can do for help. The best that she can find is an electronically controlled floodlight that looks over the roof. It is easy to turn on. It is less easy to watch bullets fly around Oliver as he uses a grappling arrow to make his escape.

*************************

He stumbles his way back through the window, wondering how to explain the extra (bloody) laundry that he will have to so as he holds together his torn stitches with his hand. It takes him longer than he would like to admit to spot Felicity sitting, stewing in her anger, in the same chair she slept in during his first night in her house.

“Felicity-” he starts.

“Don’t talk.” She spits out, marching over to him with her newly updated first aid kit. She is deadly silent as she replaces his torn stitches but the anger she is clearly feeling crackles through the air between them. It is palpable. Silent Felicity is almost as terrifying as Felicity using her loud voice.

As soon as she is finished, he opens his mouth to explain, and his movement causes for her to explode. “What were you thinking? You’re such an idiot, Oliver. You have one of the best resources available and willing to help literally living the next door down, and yet you think that it’s a better idea to go out whilst you’re still at risk of internal bleeding and permanent damage to… _what_? Beat in a few heads so that your ego feels like you’re doing something? You’re fracking lucky that I needed some water tonight, because if I hadn’t, you would be dead. As it is, you still ripped your stitches open. And you’ve torn some of that new tissue that you’ve spent the last week _trying to make_. What explanation could you possibly have for this?”

He waits, to be sure that she is actually asking him, for too long, “Well?” her hands are on her hips. She is gorgeous when she is angry. It makes him so mad, “I’ve done this before you, and I can still do it without you.” He knows it is the wrong answer, but it just comes out.

“And before me did you or did you not have backup?”

“Not here in Starling.”

“No. You didn’t have backup when you got shot and nearly died in Starling. You did have backup on Lian Yu. You had backup in Hong Kong. You had backup when you crawled, half dead into my apartment and needed stitching up. You had backup when I turned on those floodlights tonight and you were able to escape.”

“That was you?”

“Yes. And next time you go out – _after_ you’re healed – it will _still_ be me.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? We’ve been through this Oliver. You can’t stop me.”

“I don’t want you involved in this.”

“Why?” her loud voice quiets, she sounds vulnerable, “Don’t you trust me to keep you safe?”

“Of course I do, Felicity. If I didn’t trust you then I wouldn’t be willing to sleep in the same house as you.”

“Then _why_?” her strength surges back, vulnerability forgotten.

“Because it’s dangerous. Because the more people that are involved, the more targets my enemies will have. Because if I let you become involved, you’ll become a target.” Somehow they have drawn closer together. She is practically between his knees, head tilted back to meet his eyes.

“Why does that matter?”

“Because!”

“Because what?” their faces are so close together, his eyes flicker down to her lips.

His voice is half shout, half whisper as he says “Because the most important goal in my life is to keep you safe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Olicity have their first date without realising it? Yes.  
Did Oliver make bad decisions? Yes.  
Did Oliver make the same bad decisions that he did earlier? Yes.  
Will he keep making bad decisions? Yes.  
Will he eventually learn? Yes.  
Is all of this a very canon Oliver thing to do? Absolutely. He has some growing up to do.
> 
> Hope you liked it!


	8. All resistance wearing thin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity finally have a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm sorry that this is a quarter of an hour late but I've been away from my computer all day and have only just been able to access AO3.
> 
> In good news, I have finished my semester, I caught up fully on Crisis (yay!) and I just watched TRoS. Mixed feelings, still processing. I'll get back to you later :D. Happy Friday, everyone.

**Chapter VIII – All resistance wearing thin**

“What?” She steps back, putting distance between the two of them as her face becomes marred with confusion.

“I- I have to keep you safe, Felicity.” The words fall from his lips like they were desperate to escape..

“I don’t understand. You have to keep me safe? I’m not your responsibility, Oliver. I can take care of myself. You- you don’t owe me anything. If anything I owe you for all of the food and the free cleaning services.” She forces a chuckle.

“I have to keep you safe, Felicity.” She begins to protest, but he cuts across her, “You’re my light.”

His words do nothing to clear up her confusion. If anything, she looks more perplexed. “I’m your what?”

“My light.” He is verging on inaudible, “You- you’re so bright and happy and kind and I haven’t been around anybody who is so willing to give but who wants nothing in return in my whole life. You’re light, Felicity. I’ve told you before, you’re light and good. Your name _literally_ means happiness and I can’t stay away because all I have is darkness and I don’t want my darkness to taint you but ever since I saw you babbling away in my father’s office I’ve been powerless. I can’t stay away and if I can’t keep myself away from you then I’m sure as hell going to keep my world as separate from you as possible.”

She gapes at him in shock, an unfathomable emotion filling her eyes, she gulps, her mouth opening and closing several times as she struggles for words but all that comes out is “Your father’s office?”

His back stiffens, realising what he has let slip. Instinctively, he comes up with a pathetic excuse in his mind, but he knows how easily she sees through him, and he could never lie to her anyway, “Yeah. The first time I saw you was in his office.”

“How?” it comes out more like a plea than a question.

He steps back in frustration, pacing a circle before he turns back to her, fingertips rubbing against his thumb, searching for an arrow to nock, “You remember when I told you about Amanda Waller and how she forced me to work for her by threatening the Yamashiros?” she nods, “Well, a few months ago my work for her brought me back here. There was someone who had something that Waller wanted and to get to them we needed access to the QC servers, and I was in a unique position to offer that access. I infiltrated the office, and Maseo told me to use my biometric login. I argued with him, my family thinks I’m dead so I was sure that I would have been wiped from the system but I hadn’t been, so I got in. I was downloading the files that we needed, and I saw some other ones that my father had put in there, so decided to risk getting caught so that I could copy them too. Anyway, they were almost transferred over when Maseo started yelling at me to get out of there, and I heard someone walking in. I left it to the last second and I didn’t have time to escape, so I hid behind a wall in the conference room next door. When I looked to see who was in the office, I thought it would be my mother or someone else I know but instead I saw blonde hair and glasses and this white polka dot top that-”

She gasps, “Frack! I remember that day. I was working late and then I remembered that my boss had asked me to take a file up to the CEO’s office but it wasn’t urgent and I was too nervous to go and risk bumping into any of the execs so I put it off and did it after everyone left! And then when I was up there I – oh no! You heard that?”

“Heard what? You babbling about how cute you think I am and how it’s a shame that I died? Yup.” He is teasing her, the smirk on his face confirms it.

“Well, I take it back now.”

“Of course, I’m not dead. There is no reason to be upset.”

“No, I take back calling you cute. You’re just an ass with a very nice face but horrible hair.”

“What? What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately? You look like you’ve draped a mop over your head, Oliver. And don’t even get me started on your hair before the _Gambit_ went down. Complete serial killer style right there.”

“I did not look like a serial killer! That haircut cost me one hundred and twenty dollars.”

“I could cut your hair for free and it’d look better.” He is actually smiling at her.

“I’m still mad at you.” The smile drops, “You made a really stupid decision for a really stupid reason and you got hurt because of it.”

“It was not a stupid reason. You made me truly smile for the first time in two and a half years – probably more – of course I want to keep you away from my mission.” He protests.

“Yes, it was. Oliver, I’m not all sunshine and rainbows. You can’t put me on a pedestal like that, I have my fair share of darkness too, it’s just that I choose to make the best of it.”

“I never mentioned _rainbows_.” He mumbles, stopping himself from asking about what darkness she feels she has.

She smiles at him, “You can’t taint me with your darkness. It’s already a part of me, like it is part of everyone. And I’m in far more danger of getting hurt by your mission if you don’t let me help you because you’ll be in more danger of getting hurt, and then you won’t be able to protect me. Not that I need protecting. I am a smart, independent, self-sufficient woman. But I’m not above admitting that I’m not the most… physically gifted person, and you are so I’ll let you play bodyguard if you let me play tech support.”

He pauses, reluctant, before agreeing, “Okay.” She did, after all, pose an air-tight argument.

“Good. You make me have this argument a fourth time and there will be hell to pay, mister.”

*************************

Not much changes after that night. Every day, he still follows Felicity to work and then Thea to school. He spends his mornings training, picks up the groceries, does the housework and then follows Thea home. He cooks dinner for Felicity and guards her on her journey home, where they eat together – usually in front of the TV, watching something of her choice. But at night, things change. Felicity modifies her set up so that she has a state of the art server hooked up to a supercomputer and four monitors in her living room. From there, she hacks her way into the lives of the city’s worst and directs Oliver to chase after them.

She has searches running on all of the names on the list, and an algorithm that determines the most important targets to take down at any given time based on current events and the severity of their crimes. It cuts out all of the time that he would previously spend beating the streets for leads and allows him to take out far more people. It also allows him to deliver them to the police attached to the evidence needed for a conviction.

Since the debacle on the rooftop, Buchinsky has burrowed even further underground, taking everyone with a connection to him with him. It means that Felicity is becoming increasingly frustrated in her job as she struggles to find anything that leads her to his location. To say that she is become frustrated would be an understatement.

With each passing day, Oliver falls more and more for his beautiful blonde Girl-in-the-chair. She talks so passionately, and the way that she has thrown herself so completely into his mission is inspiring. The way that she hugs him every night when he returns home, relieved that he has made it back in one piece certainly does not hurt either.

He becomes accustomed to her soothing voice in his ear, guiding him through the night. It gets to a point where he cannot remember a time before she was there. Before they were partners.

*************************

For Felicity, the changes to her night are less soothing and more terrifying.

It is not that she does not enjoy her new night job. On the contrary, it is thrilling. She had forgotten how exciting it is to skirt the boundary of the law, to delve into ever-changing, time-sensitive code as she breaks through firewalls and dives through the dark net for information.

Once, she swore never to hack again, never to develop potentially world breaking code again. But one wink of Oliver’s dimples and she is diving back into that world that she fits so wonderfully into and she is in her element.

Unfortunately, the dimple-flashing hunk is also the source of all her new anxieties. She has to sit there, miles away and with only limited means for intervention as he is surrounded by men even larger than himself. She then has to listen over the comms to grunts, cries, gunshots and the thuds of flesh meeting flesh and bodies hitting concrete wondering if, this time, it is Oliver’s body that is meeting the ground. Oliver’s blood staining the streets.

Gradually, though, she gets used to it. She sees him fight and he is _good_. Good enough to take out several armed assailants all at once. He makes mistakes and gets hurt, but he is always smart enough to know when he needs to get out and he always comes back to her and lets her patch him up.

*************************

She spends hours poring over security footage, chasing leads to dead ends and scouring every system she can access for the slightest glimpse of Buchinsky to no avail. Eventually, she concedes to Oliver and he goes back to chasing leads in his own way. She turns her attentions to the human trafficking trade, hoping to find him by tracing his operations.

The decision is what uproots her life once again.

*************************

After weeks of looking, she catches word about a shipment coming in for Buchinsky. She and Oliver carefully plan out every move, not wanting to put a step wrong after last time’s disaster.

He gets there hours before the drop, nestling himself into the platform of a crane. He observes the area from his perch, watching as Buchinsky’s workers gradually file into the area and listening to the steady sound of Felicity’s voice updating him. No sign of the man himself though. By the time that the ship is visible on the horizon, Oliver has catalogued the locations of every man that has arrived, from the corrupt dock workers to the goons lurking in shadowy corners. He itches to attack once the asshole whose house he was almost killed at arrives but he reigns in his anger, knowing that the lives of everyone held captive on that boat depend on his ability to control himself.

As soon as he sees the first frightened, bruised face, he explodes into action. All seven shadowed thugs are on the ground before anyone can pinpoint his location. As the bullets begin to fly, he takes out another guy before sliding down the neck of the crane, rolling onto the roof of a shipping container. Springing up, he releases three arrows in quick succession, cutting down the nearest of his victims and then leaps down onto someone’s back, knocking him to the floor and ensuring that he hears a neck snap before moving on. Whoever set up this drop clearly underestimated their security requirements as there are only five remaining guards. All of the dock workers have fled, leaving a collection of trafficked humans exposed.

It is quick work to dispatch of the remaining five. Two carefully aimed arrows take out the gun problem and one of the men, forcing them to run at him and physically attack. Another one is down before they reach him, and a third practically runs onto the flechette that Oliver pulls out in anticipation. The other two only get a few hits in before Oliver is able to stab one, and break the other’s leg. Oliver’s grip around his neck ensures that all of them will be dead by the end of the night.

Oliver forces himself not to think of what Felicity must be feeling, hearing him like this.

It is then that he hears the sirens in the distance, and knows that Felicity has completed the next step of their plan. He yells at the group of victims, telling them to stay put and that the police are coming, hoping that one of them understands English and then runs into the shadows to make his escape.

The shadows blanket his eyes, and that is the last thing that he knows.

*************************

Felicity’s heart is pounding in the wake of the fight. She has never seen Oliver so violent before, it is frightening. Not him, she is not scared _of_ him. No, she is scared _for _him. For whatever it is that is twisting up the darkness inside of him and making him react in such a way. She is scared for his mental health and how what he has been through over the past few years – and possibly even before – is affecting him.

She is still unsure of what to say when she hears a crash. She jumps up, once again alert, in time to hear a muffled voice, though she cannot make out what it is saying. Something breaks.

Static.

The comm is dead.

Something has happened to Oliver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops!


	9. Can't live without you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PAIN.
> 
> And BAMF Felicity Smoak, that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas Eve Eve Eve! Last update before Christmas, but there will still be the usual Thursday update on Boxing Day.

**Chapter IX – Can’t live without you**

It feels like hours before she can move again. The icy terror refusing to thaw as she drowns in the possibilities of what may have happened to him. She is numb, unable to feel the way that her fingernails scrape across the skin of her throat, desperately trying to release the unyielding pressure choking her. All she feels is the chill that Oliver has left in his wake, all she knows is that, if he is truly gone, his family will never know that he survived, that he came home and tried to do good. They will never see him again.

She will never see him again.

That is not an option. It is not a thought that she can entertain. No. He must still be alive. He would not survive three years in hell only to return home and lose everything that he fought for before he ever truly got it back. Oliver is too strong to die, he has got too much to fight for. His sister, his mother, his best friend, his… Laurel.

His Felicity.

She may not understand it entirely but she realises that she means something to him. She is a symbol of sorts for him. It is not love, he is surely still directing all of those emotions at Laurel, and his need to redeem himself for his mistakes as far as she is concerned, but he certainly cares for her and if there is one thing that Felicity Smoak knows about Oliver Queen, it is that he fights for what he cares for.

Oliver never gives up, he always fights. It is that thought that allows air to rush back into her lungs, the ice locking her in her seat melting away under the touch of the fiery determination that fills her. Oliver will not give up, so neither will she.

Because Felicity Smoak fights for those she loves.

*************************

The first twenty-four hours after Oliver’s disappearance are agony. The newfound motivation filling her brings a sharp clarity to everything that she does, along with a steady supply of adrenaline that keeps her awake and in front of her system for the entire time, in spite of the fact that she had been awake for eighteen hours prior.

It allows her to keep looking incessantly, only stopping for bathroom breaks which become fewer and further between as more time passes. At some point she starts crying, tears of frustration running down her cheeks unnoticed as she pulls at loose threads that go nowhere.

Distantly, she is aware that she is a mess. It is very likely that she is having a sustained panic attack if her palpitating heart and clammy, trembling hands are to be believed but everything that she has is being channelled into stopping another man whom she loves from dying.

She does not let herself think about _that_.

For a whole day, she sits at that computer. Ignoring the cramps in her back and leg muscles – no matter how good a chair is, the pain is inevitable after such a long time. She does not feel hunger, she is not thirsty, not even for coffee. All she feels is her drive, her focus on the task at hand. She retreats back into a state that she has not experienced since her days at MIT, where she would code for hours without realising how much time had passed, without taking care of her basic needs because all she knew was the computer. But this is infinitely stronger, the stakes are so much higher than _passing some exam_. Oliver is at stake, and nothing short of Armageddon can stop her.

The things that she does are beyond illegal, but she cannot find it in her to care. She accesses bank accounts, emails, personal devices, cameras, microphones – everything and anything that might lead her in the right direction and nothing that does.

Whatever happened to Oliver is a mystery to her and she hates it. The last thing that she knows is that he was leaving the dock and then… nothing. He was taken in a technological dead spot. No internet, no signal, no video, nothing. She has all of the footage that she can find from all of the security surrounding where he was taken but none of it shows where Oliver was taken. It is like he just… vanished. But that is not possible. And there is no way that he could be dead amongst the maze of shipping containers either, because the SCPD did a thorough sweep for once. Funny how the only time that they actually do their jobs properly is when they are looking for someone who is doing their jobs for them, rather than when they are after genuine bad guys.

By hour twelve, she first starts to notice the effects of exhaustion hitting her. It is becoming difficult to hit the right key on her keyboard as she is misjudging the location of each one. That has never happened to her before.

Hour fifteen brings the lethargy that has her usual one-hundred and eighteen words per minute writing speed down to just ninety-six. It is still way above average, but it is barely fast enough to facilitate hacking. The splitting headache certainly does not help matters either.

The twentieth hour is when her hands start shaking, her muscles beginning to shut down with the lack of energy that is left in her. Her vision is blurry, making the screen difficult to read but she perseveres, uncaring of the effect that it may have on her. Nothing that is happening to her could possibly be as bad as what is likely happening to Oliver.

Everything seems to shut down all at once after she passes twenty-four hours. Almost simultaneously, black spots cover her vision, her hands stop responding to her brain and her eyelids lose their battle to stay up. She falls asleep.

*************************

The second day has almost finished by the time she groggily regains consciousness. She still has a headache, but the most prominent feeling that she has is of being hollowed out. Physically, emotionally, mentally. Her mouth is completely dry and tastes like dust, her muscles have all stiffened up – a mixture of her previous day’s activity and the position that she has slept in.

Her immediate reaction is anger. At herself, for allowing herself to fall asleep, she shoots up, intending to get right back to it but the wave of dizziness that hits delays her. As she tries to focus her vision, a little voice in her head (that sounds suspiciously like Oliver) reprimands her for the way that she has treated her body over the last day or so. It tells her that rest is the key to productivity, and that she is no use without proper sustenance. Reluctantly, she picks herself up and heads to the kitchen, forcing thoughts of all of the meals that Oliver made for her in that very room and ‘_will he ever get to again? Will he ever make me another dinner? Will I ever get to wake up to him making me breakfast again?_’ away.

She wants coffee, but knows that it acts as a diuretic, so forces herself to reach for some juice instead. She wants fat and cheese, but knows that what her body needs is healthy foods designed to help her brain, not more fat so she searches the fridge, the freezer and chokes up. There, in the freezer, are some of the piroshki that he made the first time he cooked for her.

Tearfully, she takes them out and warms them, eating them in a state of both joy and sorrow as she thinks of the man that spent hours ensuring that he handmade an entire meal perfectly for her from nothing but basic ingredients. The man who bought her kitchenware so that he could build her something with his own two hands and no outside influence.

He does not deserve to be suffering whatever he is going through now.

She makes a new plan.

*************************

The second day she may have wasted, but it did allow her to reassess and come up with a new plan. For the first time in her life, the internet has failed her and that forces her to think outside of her comfort zone. To come up with a new plan that accounts for the fact that none of the information that she needs can be found digitally.

Felicity Smoak is going analogue.

She hits the streets – in broad daylight, she is not stupid, she knows that she is not exactly the go-to girl in a fight, she has absolutely no training and loses her breath after five sit-ups – and makes her way to the docks. If she cannot find any evidence of Oliver’s whereabouts online, then she is going to track him the old fashioned way. Sherlock Holmes reincarnate, ready to find clues and evidence and any _damned cameras that are not online_.

She has to steel herself before beginning. It is difficult being in a place where Oliver has experienced such emotional and physical turmoil. It is also difficult to find any uncontaminated evidence in the mess that the SCPD has left behind. Honestly, it is like they don’t even know how to preserve a crime scene. Methodical searching of the area eventually allows her to trace Oliver’s movements in the direction that he was making his getaway. Whoever took him is _good_, and a professional. Felicity is able to find the exact spot in which he was taken, but that is it. Even with all of her expertise, she cannot find anything to point her in the direction that they took him.

It becomes her task to check everywhere that they could go. She begins with a one-container radius and expands outwards, each round taking longer than the last as the number of possible routes increases. Hours pass before she finds the first camera, hope sparking in her heart, but she was right, the abductors are professionals. The camera has been wiped, as have the other three that follow completely different directions.

She widens the radius once again, moving her search to the areas surrounding the docks. Though this makes a significantly larger area for her to search, it is made easier by the presence of the ocean. She is not ready to consider that particular possibility just yet. And in any case, she has long since ruled out the possibility of them exiting by boat. She is certain that no other boats arrived or left the dock that night.

More time passes, she has been out for almost an entire day and what little hope she had is dwindling as night fast approaches. There is no evidence. Absolutely nothing. It is impossible, but she has not found anything anywhere near the docks, and she has not found anything further away either.

Dry sobs wrack her body as she makes her way home, knowing that searching through the night will only get her hurt.

She cries herself to sleep, heart shattering.

*************************

It is with a heavy heart that she awakes on the fourth day. Up until now, she has not allowed herself to entertain the idea that Oliver’s fight may have ended permanently that night. That, so close to home, he may finally have died. His body lost to the sea that everybody assumed had taken him three years ago. It would be poetic. It is poetic, in that awful, heart-breaking way that so many poems are.

There is a heavy pressure dragging her down as she makes her way back to the docks. It makes it difficult to go on, like her very body is rebelling against the idea that Oliver is truly gone. She arrives exactly seventy-five hours after she last heard Oliver’s voice.

The sea is beautiful. It glistens in the light of the sun, waves gently rippling across the surface as they journey all the way from the horizon to the shore. She does not let the tears fall, she just turns in a circle, desperate for one last glimpse of something – _anything_.

And she finds it.

It is minute, nearly imperceptible but glaringly obvious to her greedy eyes.

A blood stain.

A half-handprint smeared on the outside of a container, like someone fumbling for support, for escape, as they were taken past it. She stumbles her way towards it, pulling out a cotton ball to take a swab. She does not need it, something in her just knows that the blood, the print, it is Oliver’s, but she has to be sure. She is lucky enough that a full fingerprint is present, so she takes an impression of it before capturing the image from every imaginable angle. Then she erases it.

No one can know that he is alive. If the police found this, who knows what would happen. That being said, she does need some way to analyse the evidence that she has, and a guy in SCPD’s forensics lab owes her a favour.

*************************

Her afternoon is spent alone in his lab, favour called in. She fixes his speeding fine, he gives her half an hour alone with all of his resources. It confirms what she already knew. Oliver’s blood, Oliver’s hand print. It also tells her things that she did not know. Based on the shape of the print, the direction of the smudge and a multitude of other microscopic forensic clues, she knows that Oliver was being dragged somewhere, that he was fighting it with everything in him (though she could have guessed that), which means that he was awake. She also learns which direction he was being dragged in.

Before she leaves, she is careful to wipe away any evidence of what equipment she used, what she looked up, the fact that she scanned blood and it was a match to the deceased Oliver Jonas Queen – and his hideous mugshot – it is like she was never even there.

*************************

Back at home, behind her computers, she is finally able to find what she has been looking for after four days. She is furious with herself for not realising it earlier, that _they never even took Oliver out of the dock_. They just hid him _inside _one of those _damned_ shipping containers for a few days to wait for the attention on the area to calm down, before moving him out.

It almost breaks her to realise that she was mere feet – inches – away from him several times, and she did not even realise it.

Tracking their location goes a great deal of the way in helping heal her cracks. At first she is confused, she cannot comprehend what is happening. But they have taken him to an abandoned building in the Glades for whatever their plans are, and the building is owned by Queen Consolidated. There is somebody high up in the very company that she works for, that Oliver’s family owns, who is corrupt enough to be running this. To be working with Buchinsky.

Fortunately, whoever it is has been stupid enough to set up a system that runs almost entirely wirelessly. She is in within the span of a heartbeat, searching for whomever it may be. Maybe they are not so stupid. There is no evidence to point at the person behind this on the system, but there are cameras. A scan reveals only four people in the building. An Oliver Queen looking like he has spent the better part of the last few days on the receiving end of someone’s fist. And the three people who kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured him.

Felicity’s heart hardens as she looks at Oliver, bruised and bleeding as he hangs from the ceiling, feet barely grazing the floor. Those three monsters are going to die. And so is anyone else who has been involved in this.

*************************

Once night has fully engulfed Starling, she makes her move. She cannot call the police, Oliver would hate that. But she can sure as hell make sure that he gets out of that place alive. From her position, hidden around the corner, she remotely locks the doors around Oliver’s three attackers, trapping them all in separate spaces and cutting the power to everything but the locking mechanisms.

Unwilling to waste a minute, she darts inside, following the careful route that she has planned to get her to Oliver as quickly, and as safely as possible, she runs faster than she can ever remember. And then she crashes into something solid, warm and undeniably alive and she screams, jumping back and away from the unknown assailant. As she attempts to escape, large hands encircle her biceps, pulling her struggling form back in.

“Felicity?” comes the familiar voice of the man she loves.

A wave of love and relief surges through her, “Oliver.” She sobs, crumpling into his arms. He grunts in pain, reminding her of where she is and why she is there, “Oh! I’m so sorry. Here, lean on me. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.”

She looks up at him before simply stating, “I’m rescuing you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Duh, Oliver. You dummy. Of course she came to save you.


	10. unleash all the feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity saves her man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! Happy holidays, gleeful Winters and wonderful days to those who don't celebrate that stuff. I'm doing something for the twelve days of Christmas and thought that I would start with a UDC update!
> 
> This one is a little shorter than usual but... it is a day early as a present to everyone and I promise to give you my longest chapter ever to make up for it on Sunday! Which reminds me: no update tomorrow because of this today, I just couldn't leave you all hanging on Christmas day!
> 
> See you Sunday!

**Chapter X – unleash all the feelings**

Oliver finds himself waking up in a small room, disoriented and confused by his abruptly changed surrounding and the splitting pain in his head, surrounded by metal walls and three other men. He cannot hear anything from outside of the room, and it only seems to emphasise the sound of fists meeting his skin.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, dreaming of Felicity waiting for him in their home. Of Thea’s sweet, innocent face when he promised to come back to her just before he left to board the _Gambit_. Of his Mom.

When he wakes up, he removes his consciousness from the world, withdrawing his mind into himself so that he can ignore the pain in his body. Vaguely, he wonders what his death might do to Felicity. If she will mourn him, if she will miss him. He regrets that he never got to tell her that he loves her.

They do not feed him, so after a while he stops needing to use the bucket that they offer as a toilet. They do give him some water, but it is not enough to make him need to relieve himself. It is barely even enough to keep him alive, he can feel the strength gradually draining out of him.

At some point, he does not know how long after he was taken that it is, he is let out of the room. It is a shipping container, so he is still at the docks. There is a part of him that has enough energy to remember that he wants to escape, and he makes a feeble attempt. He is unconscious for the remainder of the journey.

When the lights go black, it is like a shot of adrenaline administered directly to his heart. For the first time, he is able to think clearly enough to remember his training. The pipe holding his shackles to the ceiling is only just strong enough to take his weight, but not enough to hold up if he adds extra force. Pulling himself up is exhausting, but he makes it a foot or so higher than he had been. He drops to the floor, the pipe crumpling down under his weight and allowing him the range of motion needed to dislocate his thumbs and escape from the shackles. It takes all his strength to get back up, but he has enough presence of mind to put on his hood, his quiver and to take his bow.

The darkness is his friend, the years have allowed him to develop his night vision to the point that he can see enough to make his way around even in the pitch black. The shape before him is small, smaller than his captors. The sound of her walking is familiar. It stuns him into silence, allowing her to bump into him.

Voice trembling, “Felicity?” he asks.

*************************

He is silent the rest of the way home. Either too hurt or too shocked to talk. Felicity periodically checks the situation in the building. All three guards are still locked up. She checks the camera footage from their escape, and infrared shows her that Oliver took advantage of her blackout to dislocate his own thumbs and slip free, grabbing his clothes and bow on his way to her. Cruelly, they had been left within his sight but not his reach.

When they get back, he allows her to patch him up. The cuts are not too bad. None need stitches and they will heal quickly. It is the bruising that worries her. The man is practically black and blue, and she is concerned that he may have some broken bones.

He must know her too well, because he sees her looking at the bruising with a frown and says “I’ve not broken anything, Felicity.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I’ve broken bones before. None of these feel broken. But I am malnourished and dehydrated. That’s why I’m so weak.”

“Oh, Oliver.” She looks up at him with shining eyes, full of tears.

“I’m safe now.” He assures her, hands cradling her face, “You saved me.” Awe fills his voice.

*************************

She feeds him what she can, and makes sure that he drinks plenty of water. He takes the time to berate her for going into the field, but she shuts him down quickly. Reminding him that she saved him, that without her he would be dead or near to it. They sit together for a while, just basking in being back together and safe and alive, before she turns herself to face him. He reciprocates the gesture.

“I can’t lose you again. It’s too much. I can’t lose any more people.”

“You won’t. You won’t lose me.” His hands move up to her face.

“I lose everyone.” Her tears are falling into his waiting thumbs.

“Not me.”

“I thought that you had left me. I thought you were- Everybody leaves me, Oliver. Even my own parents. My dad left when I was eight. One day he was there, and then he wasn’t and my mom and I were moving to a box of an apartment right on the Strip. And my mom, well, she’s my mother and I know she loves me but she just never _understood_ me, she was always so busy and I’ve only had minimal contact with her since I left for MIT, we’ve barely even spoke since I came to Starling. I just- everyone leaves me, Oliver. But I don’t know if I could survive _you_ leaving me.”

“I’ll never leave you.”

“You can’t say that.”

“I can. I’ll never leave you, Felicity. I’m not your father, and I hate him for doing that to you, but I _never_ will. Do you know why?” his hands are still on her face, forcing her to look up at him, she slowly shakes her head. “Because I love you.” It’s like a weight has been removed from him, “I am _in love_ with you, Felicity Smoak.”

Shock is written on her face, “Y-you don’t mean that. You’re… you’re just exhausted, and dehydrated and-” his mouth is on hers.

Flames lick their way across her skin, spreading from the heat of his soft, soft lips as they move over her mouth. She is powerless but to respond, her mouth opening under his onslaught, allowing his tongue to tentatively caress its way in. Her previously useless hands raise up, and encircle his neck so that her fingers can run through the hair that is just as soft as his mouth. So maybe she minds the haircut less than she thought, after all.

As if to respond to the way that her hands move over him, his slip away from her face, one moving to encircle her waist fully with his arm, the other tangling into the long tresses, angling her deeper into him. They are entirely pressed together. Her breasts crushed into his chest and still their mouths are dancing together. Time passes at a rate completely unknown to the two of them, it is like they share their own world in which the concept does not even exist as they let the night pass in a melody of love and heat.

Oliver does not move to take it any further. Content to have her mouth on his, facing one another sideways on the sofa and entwined as closely as possible. Desperately seeking to get closer, she shifts so that her moving hips press against his, leg thrown over his knee in an attempt to pull herself on top of him. It is that moment that he chooses to disentangle his tongue from hers and lean back so that their faces are separate, but still close, and she is straddling his lap as he falls back on the sofa.

“I love you.” He whispers again, brushing his nose along the length of hers affectionately.

“I love you too.” His breath hitches in response, adoration shining up at her on his face.

He pauses for a moment, deep in thought, “Felicity… would you like to go to dinner with me?”

“I’m being serious here, Oliver.” Amusement flickers across her face.

“So am I.” Deadly serious.

“I don’t want to read too much into this, but are you asking me out on a date? Like, an actual date. Like… a _date_, date.”

“Sure. I mean… the implication being with dinner that you-”

“Usually I’m the one talking in sentence fragments.”

He huffs out a laugh into the skin of her chest, “Would you like to go to dinner with me?”

“But you can’t go out in public. You’re supposed to be staying incognito, and that face… _so_ not incognito. Especially not in this city.”

“Fe-li-ci-ty.” he urges, fondly.

“Yes.” A slow smile spreads across her lips.

“Yes?” his smile mirrors hers.

“Yes.” Her affirmation is met by his lips once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I make it better?
> 
> Have a great few days everyone, I'm so excited for Sunday :D


	11. The stars choose their lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does what it says on the tin ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This is the biggest chapter that I have ever uploaded - just over 6000 words and A LOT happens. There are a few potentially triggering things in this chapter, but to avoid spoilers I will put them all in the end notes so if you know you might be triggered by something, please check first and I'll try to guide you away from those parts.
> 
> There is a lot of dialogue in this one, but there is also a lot of other stuff so I hope that you enjoy this final update in 2019, I'll see you in the new decade! Lets see this one out with a... bang...

**Chapter XI – The stars choose their lovers**

It is practically daylight by the time they manage to separate but they still stay awake. Oliver begins to tell Felicity about his first year away. Recalling the guilt that he felt watching Sara get swept into the water, telling her about the despair that swept through him as he watched his father kill a man and then take his own life. He speaks of the pain that he felt when Yao Fei’s arrow met his shoulder, when Billy Wintergreen’s blade broke his skin. The deeper pain of losing Yao Fei, the burn that learning to fight, to shoot, to survive, left in his muscles. He even tells her about the brotherhood that he and Slade once forged together.

Felicity listens with an open heart, looking broken at the thought of everything that he went through in such a short span of time. Her head rests on his chest, body curled into his side as the arm that is wrapped around her moves to stroke his fingers through her hair. It is the first time that he has ever told anybody about his experiences on Lian Yu and it is like a weight has been removed from him. He has never felt safe enough or loved enough to be able to talk about this before. Every person that he has encountered he has feared the judgement of. With Felicity, he is terrified of what she will think about the things he has done. He tenses when he mentions killing the bird, killing his first man. But she just takes it and does the unthinkable, she _apologises_ for everything that he has been through. She _commiserates_ with him.

He has no choice but to kiss her again.

*************************

They retire to separate rooms that night – or morning, as it were – but he can still feel her phantom presence under his arm. Sleep is impossible, knowing how close she is.

As it turns out, she took three days off around a weekend in order to look for him, so she has to go back to work the next day. They decide together that they will set their date for Friday to give Oliver enough time to heal up beforehand. It is difficult to say goodbye but knowing that the next time he sees her will be able to hold her and kiss her in the way that he has been so desperate to for so long fills him with enough anticipation to carry him through the day.

*************************

The day of their date, he wakes up with butterflies in his stomach. He makes her breakfast before kissing her goodbye, the next time that he sees her will be for their date.

He has got a lot to prepare.

*************************

Her day at work is slow, eager as she is to get home for her evening, which she is still worried about considering Oliver’s notoriety, but the extensive volume of work that has piled up in her absence helps to move it along. At lunch, she heads down to one of her favourite coffee places. It is a little walk away from QC, but it is totally worth it for their vanilla bean latte. Until her dying day, she will maintain that it is the best that she has ever had.

She is queued up, waiting to give her order when there is a commotion at the door. A woman walks in, professional suit, tight, knee-length skirt, a black diary clasped in one hand, and a phone held to her face by the other. She is barking orders down it, clearly exasperated with whomever is on the other end. She would look flustered if it were not for the fact that she is the kind of woman who persistently looks flawless, so she pulls it off more as haughty frustration than anything else.

But it is not the clear stress written on her face, or the long, thin legs and perfect complexion, or even how gorgeous the woman is that catches Felicity’s attention. No, it is the fact that this woman – this high-powered, tall, brunette, beautiful woman – is Laurel Lance.

**Oliver’s last love.**

She is not the last person that he slept with, or even that he had a relationship with. But she is the last person that he loved, his last girlfriend before the island, and suddenly all that Felicity can focus on is all the ways in which she is very obviously _not_ Laurel Lance.

She is too short. She has got blonde hair – dyed, but her natural colour is not exactly the dynamic brown-blonde that Laurel is pulling off. She is nowhere near as gorgeous. She is not high-powered. She is a complete nerd. She is constantly looking flustered, all glasses and flyaway hair and babbles. She has no history with Oliver. She does not even know anyone else who has been in Oliver’s life. She is not Laurel Lance.

Her heart turns to lead, a weight that she has to drag back to work once she finally gets her coffee and surreptitiously skirts her way around Laurel, not that Laurel would recognise her in any way. The afternoon passes in a vastly different manner to the morning, excitement having turned to dread.

Oliver promised to never leave her the way that her father had, but she is still yet to tell him about Cooper. What if she did, and he looked at her differently? What if he realises that she is not worth sticking around for, and that he should be with Laurel, or someone like her.

**Someone more like him.**

*************************

Oliver texts her during the day. It is actually very sweet.

_Do you like Italian?_

_What?_

_For tonight._

_You like Italian, right?_

_Everyone likes Italian._

_You’re in the middle of a stakeout._

_Or you’re supposed to be, anyway._

_Did you see the message I left you?_

_Yeah. I’m multitasking._

_Okay. Make sure you keep your eye out._

_And, yes. I like Italian._

_I gotta go. I’m at work._

_Okay. I’ll see you later._

_Meet me at this address._

_(I worked out hyperlinks, are you proud?)_

_Love you, bye._

It really is sweet. The problem is that she feels unable to bask in the glory of Oliver’s love, only able to focus on the last woman he said those words to. And how easily they would fit back together.

*************************

It takes more time than usual for her to get ready. Her stomach is bubbling with nerves, so badly that she is genuinely starting to believe that she is going to throw up. She selects a red dress, it is the most expensive article of clothing that she owns, she figures that it is the closest thing that she owns to the sort of dress that is suitable for a place that Oliver Queen would frequent.

Her slow preparation, combined with a significant amount of fussing over her appearance – her curls need to be bouncier, there is a small smudge in her lipstick, those shoes are not right for this dress – makes her late. She need not have worried. Oliver seems to be running even later.

*************************

The maître d’ directs her to the table, reserved under her own name, not Oliver’s, as they had agreed. The table stands in the centre of the restaurant, but no other tables surround it. As a matter of fact, there is nobody else in the restaurant at all. She looks around in confusion, forgetting about her fears that Oliver simply will not bother coming as she wonders why he has brought her to an abandoned restaurant.

“_Signorina_, what would you like to drink?”

“Oh. No, it’s okay, I’m still waiting on someone.”

“_Signore_ Jonas instructed me to take your drinks order as soon as you arrived. He asks me to let you know that he will join you momentarily.”

_Jonas_? “Um. Okay, uh, I’ll just have a water, please.”

“Anything else?”

“No, just the water. Thank you.”

She returns with Felicity’s water quickly, and then vanishes. Feeling slightly creeped out, Felicity looks around at the completely empty restaurant, checking for any signs of life. As she turns back, her heart leaps, skipping about three beats and she lets out a frightened yelp as she is accosted by the sight of the seat in front of her having been filled. Oliver lets out that huff of a laugh of his, smiling at the shock on her face.

“Oliver! You just about gave me a heart attack. How in hell did you get there? What’s going on?”

“My… uh… _infamy _may have decreased somewhat in the last three years, but I’m still one of the most recognisable people in Starling. I thought that someone might notice if a not-so-dead Oliver Queen showed up on a date in the middle of a restaurant, so I hired out the whole place. And then I instructed the staff so that they wouldn’t see me either, only you. You look beautiful, by the way.”

She is still blushing by the time she has decided what to eat, looking around and wondering how to order. The two have not spoken a word since she thanked him with a choked voice and buried her face behind a menu but as soon as he looks up and sees that she has emerged, he smiles.

“Have you decided?” she nods in response, “Okay, let me know what you want and I’ll get the order to them.” He instructs. She tells him, watching as he whips out a tablet and sends the orders through.

They look at one another for a few moments, a tension filling the space between them. Oliver is the first to break their gaze, looking down and reaching for a glass of scotch that materialised as spontaneously as he did.

He huffs another laugh, “Sorry, I’m just… nervous.”

“Line forms behind me.”

His brow furrows, watching her sip her water. “Water? Didn’t you want wine? I told them to offer you anything you wanted.”

“I know. I asked for a water.”

“Are you sure? Because the booze might sort of help with the whole-”

“The alcohol is not going to mix well with the three Benzos I took.”

The silence falls over them again. Felicity attempts to pass time by fiddling with the tablecloth, her dress, her hair, the cutlery. She looks aimlessly around the room, faking interest in the décor and even studying the wallpaper. In her peripheral vision, she can see that Oliver’s eyes don’t leave her. For once, his face is an open book. Worry and confusion are written in the lines of his forehead, but his eyes, all that fills them is a hurt look. The look of someone preparing themselves to be rejected.

“Felicity?”

**With significant reluctance, she looks back at him.**

“Are… are you okay? Did I do something wrong? Is it the restaurant? We can leave if you want to. Or is it the date? Felicity, if you don’t want to date me then that’s fine. I’ll take you home and I promise, I won’t-”

“No!” too loud, she lowers her voice, “No, Oliver. You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you have been perfect. You’ve been kind and attentive, you’ve asked for my opinion and you chose a beautiful place – the perfect place for a first date. It’s just… I just… it’s me. Not you. It’s my problem.”

“What’s wrong? I’ll fix it, Felicity. Anything.”

“It’s not something that you can fix. It’s my issue.”

“So just tell me. Please, I want to help, I want to-”

“I saw Laurel today.” It shuts him up. “As in, Laurel Lance. Gorgeous Laurel. Your ex, Laurel.”

He swallows, “I… I know that I wasn’t good to her. I know I treated her badly, Felicity, and that cheating on her with her sister is unforgiveable, but I swear – _I swear _– I’m not that person anymore. And you’re not Laurel. I would never _ever_ do that to you.” Panic has taken over the confusion.

“I _know_ that Oliver. Of course you’re not the same person, nobody could go through the things that you have – even just what you’ve told me, not even considering the things that you feel too scared to tell me, the things you feel are so bad that they’d scare me away or whatever – that’s not the problem. The problem… I… I guess I’m just waiting for you to realise that I’m not who you should be with.” She sighs, “You should be with someone like Laurel, not Laurel, that situation is far to messed up now, but someone tall and gorgeous and put-together. Someone who has it all worked out and who never lets their mouth get away from their brain. Someone… not like me.”

**He softens, almost melting at her words,** “Felicity.” He smiles that special smile of his, “I have already been with that person. I was with Laurel on and off for years and we never made it stick. I cheated on her incessantly and she always took me back, I never took our relationship seriously and she always did. We could never make it work because we were never right for each other. And we were never _going_ to be right for one another.

“That person that you just described, that’s Laurel and it’s exactly who my mother would love for me to be with but it’s also the exact wrong person for me. No matter how much I’ve changed now, it would just make me miserable. Maybe even more so than it did before”

He reaches out for her hand, engulfing it in his own, “The right person for me is someone who makes me feel happy. Someone who lets me feel at peace all of the terrible things that I have seen and experienced and done when I’m in her presence. Someone who never pushes me for more than I am able to give, but would also never accept anything less than my entire being. I want – I _need_ – someone light, who doesn’t overthink everything that she says like the people of the world that I grew up in always do, who doesn’t hide fifty secret meanings in one conversation.

“I _like_ that you say exactly what’s on your mind. I fucking_ love_ it when you make innuendos. I don’t want to be with someone who has it all worked out, I want to be with someone who has ideas but is willing to work my own into their life, who is willing to let me make decisions _with_ them, rather than deciding everything for me. That’s been my whole life and I hate it. It’s wonderful to be around you, you’re so small that I feel like I could wrap your entire body up in mine and keep you safe, you’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, Felicity, I don’t care what you think, you’re perfect and _I love you_. I love you more than I’ve ever loved another before and it terrifies me because I have only known you for a few weeks but I trust you more than anyone else, and I have fallen in love with you. I have never fallen so hard or fast or fully for another person before and everything in me is telling me to keep it to myself, to stay away from you and keep you safe but I’m just not strong enough.”

“Oliver.” Felicity breathes, love shining from her eyes.

“Please, let me?”

“Okay.”

“I am not sure if I have ever been in love before, Felicity.” He is getting closer to where she is sat, stunned into silence, “I’ve been with a lot of women. There is no hiding that. If you asked me for a number, I honestly don’t think I could give you one, but there have only been a few that mattered. Laurel, of course. I loved her, I’m sure of that, we were childhood friends and the progression was natural. I loved her as my friend before anything else, but I wasn’t ever _in love_ with her. If I had been, I would never have treated her the way I did. I can’t even imagine hurting you like that or wanting to do something that would result in hurting you like that.

“Most of my dating life has been taken up by Laurel and the women I cheated on her with. Any women I was with during our break ups were meaningless and brief and there has only been one woman since the _Gambit_. I think that only four of the people I have been with have meant anything to me. The first, obviously, is Laurel and I cheated on her a lot, but there were only two of those women that left their mark on me. Sara is one. I should never have been with Sara, but I loved her like I loved Laurel, I’d grown up with her too and I knew she had a crush on me and Laurel wanted us to move in together and she was just… convenient. Fun. It was comforting to be with her. Both of us were angry with Laurel, both of us were lashing out and we knew each other so well.

“The fourth woman was Shado. I’ve told you a little about her. That was mostly convenience and comfort too. We were both in a difficult place and we could trust so few people there, but we knew that we could trust one another, and we cared about one another so we were together. It was simple.

“The one that you may not know about is a woman that I cheated on Laurel with before I was with Sara. **Her name was Samantha,** and for a month or so after our night together, she was just like all the others. But then she came to the mansion and…” he gulps, seemingly steeling himself before continuing, “And she was pregnant with my child.” A gasp leaves Felicity, “I spent the entire time that I knew she was pregnant lamenting how difficult my life was. I worried about how to tell Laurel, I moaned about how a baby would ruin my life. I was awful, and I didn’t even consider how Samantha must have felt but there was a small part of me that was excited. I thought about having a son, taking him to games with Tommy, taking him home to play with Thea. I thought about a little girl who would look just like her, like my little sister when she was a baby, who I could teach to never take shit from anyone and just… spoil. I thought about a child, looking up at me like I was the greatest man alive.”

He pauses again, a haunted look crossing over him as he squeezes his eyes shut, making Felicity’s heart hurt as she dreads his next words: “Samantha lost the baby.” Tears make tracks down Felicity’s cheeks, sorrow filling her for Oliver and his loss, his eyes flicker back open and he reaches to wipe them away but does not stop talking, needing to finish before he breaks too, “I didn’t even realise that it had happened until she called me. All I got was a few words as she told me that she miscarried, and she was moving back to Central City to be with her family.

“I didn’t love Samantha, I never particularly cared about _her_ specifically, but there was a brief period of time in which she carried my baby, and that made her special, it made me consider her as more than just a quick lay. I did care about that, it was important. Though, ultimately not enough to make me follow her, or check that she was okay. I told my mom that I was fine, that I was relieved and a part of me was but my heart broke that day. And then my behaviour just became increasingly self-destructive until… Sara, until the _Gambit_.”

Unable to stand the absent look in his eyes, Felicity pulls her hand out of his, making him flinch as if he is expecting her to somehow blame him for what happened, before she stands up, moves over to him, winds her arms around his shoulders and just holds him, her face pressed into his neck.

She holds him in that awkward position for several moments, her tears trickling down his skin and soaking the shoulder of his shirt as she half-bends to his frozen body. Discomfort is just beginning to wind its way into her spine when a loud sob escapes him and he sweeps her from her feet and into his arms, cradling her in his lap like she is the most precious thing he has ever had the honour of holding.

“You have been through so much, Oliver. You have experienced some of the most awful things that any one person can live through and you have only come out stronger for it. To know that, even before you were stranded, you went through something so difficult and painful… and I know that you feel like you don’t have a right to mourn because of how you reacted but, Oliver, whether you were ready to be a father or not, you made a child and you started to imagine them, and love them, and then you lost them before you ever got a chance to meet them. You’re allowed to mourn. You’re allowed to be sad for what you lost.” He buries his own face into the crook between her clavicle and neck, shoulders shuddering.

“I know that, logically.” He says, barely above a whisper, “But sometimes, I wonder if it was a good thing that they were never born. I would have been a terrible father.”

“Oliver, the mere fact that that’s something you worry about, the way that you feel about losing them, it tells me the exact opposite. You _care_, Oliver. You care so much and that is what would have made you an excellent father. It’s what _will_ make you an excellent father should you ever decide to go down that path again.”

**He looks up at her, awe filling his eyes,** “You’re remarkable.”

“And you’re a good man, Oliver Queen.”

His lips meet hers in the most tender kiss of either of their lives.

*************************

They do eventually manage to eat their food, their lips broken apart by the buzz of an intercom telling them that it has been cooked and been left for their collection – yet another precaution of Oliver’s. The food is fantastic, though in Felicity’s opinion it is not as good as Oliver’s. She tells him as much, and is rewarded with a beautiful blush across his cheeks.

They are waiting for dessert, sombre mood somewhat lifted by the pleasant meal and lighter chatter, when Felicity speaks up, “I- I want to tell you something.”

“Okay.” He looks at her expectantly.

“It’s just… you’ve been so open with me tonight and I want to be open with you too but I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking anything away from what you’ve said and I don’t want you to think that I’m telling you this just because you’ve told me things – I genuinely want to share this with you-”

“Felicity.” His soft voice cuts across her, “I would love for you to share with me.” And he would, she knows, that love is shining through his eyes.

“I’ve lived a different life to you.” He nods his agreement, “My number… it’s considerably smaller than yours. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve been with. I can count on two fingers, actually.

“So, you know I’m kind of smart?” His huff of laughter makes her smile, “Well, I actually graduated from high school when I was fifteen and then went to college just after I turned sixteen. I was at college for four years and in that time I managed to complete dual Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Computer Sciences and Cyber Security. I’m not saying that to show off or anything, but it is relevant to the fact that I was always a lot younger than the people around me. That made it hard for me to make friends. It made it hard for anyone at college to see me as anything more than the little kid who came early and when everyone sees you as a kid, well, no one really wants to be the person dating the ‘kid’. I didn’t go on my first date until I was eighteen, and I didn’t have a boyfriend until I was nineteen and in my senior year of college.

“His name was Cooper Seldon. He was twenty-two and we shared most of our classes. We bonded over both being kids who’d skipped grades and gone to college early. He had been seventeen when he started but he didn’t move to MIT until he did his Masters, so we’d never met. I fell in love, I thought that he did too, and I think that he did but that didn’t stop him from using me. We were part of this… I guess you could call it a group, we were hacktivists, for lack of a better word. Civil disobedience via the World Wide Web. I created an x-axis bi-numeric algorithm… a super virus that could give us root access to any connected server. We could expose government fraud, start virtual sit-ins and digitally deface criminals. I guess you could say it was my first attempt at being a hero.

“**We did a stupid thing.** Our test run was used to hack the Department of Education and I was naïve enough to believe that we were just going to go in, take a screenshot and get out but Coop had other plans. He used my virus to start erasing student debts. He didn’t think we’d get caught because part of the code wasn’t configured but another part was and they back-traced it straight to his computer. They arrested him.

“I wanted to take the fall – it was my code, after all – but he wouldn’t let me. He said that he was the one who did it and so he should take the blame.”

“He was right.” Oliver interrupts.

“I’m not so sure.” She keeps going, to stop him from arguing with her, “Either way, he hung himself before sentencing.” Oliver’s face falls, “He just… killed himself. And I was so devastated, I had put everything into our relationship and then one stupid decision made him leave me, just like my dad had. It caused a lot of conflict in me because I was mourning him, of course, but I was also so angry. Angry that he did it in the first place, angry that he used me like that, angry that he gave up and left me. I changed my whole look, went from goth-girl to bubbly blonde,” Oliver does a double take, “I completely cut myself off from everything. Finished college and then threw myself straight into work at QC. I vowed to never hack again, to never risk making something like that algorithm again. I also vowed to never let myself fall into a relationship again. Obviously that didn’t work out.” **She smiles at him, grabbing his hand.**

“The second guy I met at a QC conference. Ray Palmer, owner of Palmer Technologies. He’d heard about some of my… exploits and achievements in college and he tried to steal me over to his company but I refused. We became friends though, and then it just developed. I don’t know if it was ever a proper relationship. It was fun and he was sweet and thoughtful but then he told me that he loved me after we’d only been together for like, a month, and I bolted. And then, six months later, you walked into my life. Or jumped into it. Whichever.”

“That’s why you’re in a position that you’re so overqualified for? Because you don’t want to risk being brilliant again?”

“That’s what you took from this?”

“Look, Felicity, I am sorry that you had to go through what experiences you went through, but I am also glad that you did because they shaped the person that you are today. And you know how I feel about her.” It’s her turn to blush, “But you can’t let them hold you back.” She opens her mouth to protest, “No, listen. You did something and it backfired in a horrible way, yes, but you can’t let the fear of that happening again stop you from being the incredible woman you are. Learn from what happened, take extra precautions in the future but you, Felicity Smoak, have the potential to change the world for the better. You can’t let fear stop you from doing that. That’s why I am glad that you let Walter put you in your new position. And it’s why I think that next time you’re offered a promotion, you go for it. You get into the applied sciences division and you create just like you’re meant to.”

“Oliver…”

“If that code had been used right, would it have helped people?” she nods, “Most things that have the potential to do great good also have the potential to do great evil. You cannot let the latter prevent the former.” All she can do is nod again.

*************************

**Dessert consumed, they make their way home.** Felicity made it a point to eat her desert in the most sensual way possible and her plan has worked out. Their whole way back, Oliver cannot keep his hands off her. Gripping her hand in one of his, running his other one along her body, through her hair, touching every bit of bare skin that he can find. His lips find her neck as she fumbles with the keys on their doorstep.

“Oliver.” She moans, her free hand moving behind her to thread through his hair as he does his best to suck a mark into the skin between her neck and shoulder.

“Open the door, Felicity.” His arms loop around her waist, pulling her tight against his hard body. The feel of him pressed up against her elicits another moan. The door opens and they stumble in.

As soon as they are across the threshold, Oliver spins her around, pressing her into the door and pushing it closed. His mouth works its way up from her neck to her mouth and blissful minutes pass with the two of them grasping at one another desperately, locked together at the lips. Eventually, Oliver is the one to draw back, leaving Felicity flush against the door. One hand twisting the lock and securing the hand, he pants “Felicity.”

He begins to pepper kisses across her face puncturing each one with a breathy word, “You’re. So. Perfect. So. Sexy. I. Love. You. I. Want. You.” He stops kissing her, “Do- do you want me? Whatever you want, Honey, whatever you want.”

“Oliver.” She crashes her lips back to his, “Take me to bed.”

**He is more than happy to comply,** sweeping her up into his arms with her legs wrapped around his waist. The move rucks up her dress, bunching the material around her hips and offering him a tantalising glimpse of her underwear. They are green. Lacy. Oliver’s heart stops. Powerless but to show her his appreciation for them, he reaffirms his grasp on her ass, caressing the soft fabric as he walks the two of them to her bedroom.

Every step presses him into her, rocketing up his need for her tenfold. She is so _soft_. Her supple body pressing into him is the most incredible feeling that he has ever experienced. Smooth skin covers tight muscle, distracting him from his mission to get her to a bed. They make four stops along the short journey to lean against her walls and savour one another.

Finally, he is able to throw her onto the bed and enjoy the way that her dress shifts up, exposing her flat stomach as she bounces. He levels the playing field, stripping his jacket and shirt as he toes his shoes off. He kneels before her at the side of the bed and wraps his hand around her ankle. Kissing his way up her toned calf, he slides off her shoe, making his way to her knee before swapping to the other leg. She gasps when he caresses the underside of each foot, nuzzling into the sensitive skin behind her knees.

But she is impatient, and her movements become demanding as her body craves his more and more. She sits up, moving his face to meet hers once again, tongue sliding against his. He pulls her to standing and smooths down her dress, fingers reaching for the zipper. It glides down softly, exposing more and more of her naked body and making him gasp as he realises that the only thing she is wearing underneath is those verdant panties. The dress falls to the floor and he just about stops breathing, drinking in the sight of her.

Felicity has no such issue. Half naked, she launches herself at him, yanking down his trousers and circling his neck with her arms. It reanimates him, he feel of her skin against his making him move as he lets her weight pull him over and they fall onto the bed.

*************************

She is _straddling Oliver Queen_. He is almost naked – _she _is almost naked – and she is on top of him, legs spread over his ridiculously cut abs, his crotch pressed up behind her. Her fingers run over his chest, tracing his scars in a gentle pattern from shoulder to abdomen. Her lips descend, following the same path that her fingers took and eliciting a loud groan from him, his hands moving to run over her ass, up her hips and to her waist, where his fingertips can almost meet as his hands encircle her. He caresses her back, not quite knowing where to land his hands, clearly needing to touch her – all of her – as much as she needs to touch all of him.

She feels herself shifting to settle in his lap as he sits upright in an attempt to access as much of her as possible. It works in her favour as his back is exposed, allowing her to explore new expanses of skin. Their hips rock together in a dance just for the two of them. Oliver groans again, his hand finally stilling as his arm bands around her and he flips them so that she is lying under him. It lines their eyes up and they pause, staring at one another with half smiles curving the corners of their mouths and then they are touching again.

He is all over her, body caging her against the mattress, mouth moving from her lips to her jaw to her neck and back again, making her eyes roll back and her head dig into the pillow. She flutters her hands aimlessly across his shoulders in response, lost to the pleasure of him on top of her.

“Fe-li-ci-ty.” That special way he says her name is made infinitely better by the way that he moans it, his hips bucking into hers and her legs wrapping around his. He travels back down with his lips, but this time does not return after he reaches her neck. No, he keeps going, moving down to her chest and then she is gone. Pure, unadulterated bliss overtakes her vision and all she can feel is Oliver, Oliver, _Oliver_.

He keeps going, attention successfully lavished on her chest, she has a trail of red skin and beard burn and purple marks forming all the way down her body, a winding path making its way to her navel. It is only once he gets there that Oliver pauses. He sits back on his knees and looks at her, flushed, straining against his boxers and more out of breath than he ever is after a workout, “Felicity?” he asks, hovering over her, his chest brushing over her thighs, one hand gripping her knee and the other tracing the waistband of her underwear.

“Yes.”

They fall back into one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, here are the potential triggers:
> 
> A woman feels insecure about herself and her image. These insecurities are brought about by childhood and past traumas centered around abandonment, but this is not mentioned. If you don't like reading about women suffering from poor self-image, skip from "Oliver's last love." to "Someone more like him." to avoid the worst of it. There are a few other references to it but the only other major one is from "With significant reluctance, she looks back at him." to "He softens, almost melting at her words," the second skip will make you miss some plot but you should be able to catch up.
> 
> There is a big section in which miscarriage is discussed. The miscarriage in question did not actually occur, but at this point Oliver still believes that Samantha lost their child and he has experienced the trauma of the event. If this will affect you, please don't read the section starting from "Her name was Samantha," and finishing with "He looks up at her, awe filling his eyes," all that you will miss is Oliver discussing the profound effects that the event had on him and Felicity offering him comfort and attempting to help him realise that his feelings are valid.
> 
> Felicity also discusses the loss of a significant other due to suicide and the way that Cooper's death changed her life. If this will be something that will affect you, skip from "We did a stupid thing." to "She smiles at him, grabbing his hand."
> 
> Also, this thing gets a little hot and heavy from "Dessert consumed, they make their way home." and becomes smut-adjacent from "He is more than happy to comply," so if you don't want to read that stuff, skip from either of those parts and straight to the end of the chapter. Everything done is fully consensual.
> 
> All of the sentences that I have mentioned are in bold in the text so that you can skip straight through without having to read anything when looking for the next safe bit.
> 
> The issues discussed in this chapter are serious and many people are affected by them or similar situations. I personally have not suffered from all of these so I hope that I did them justice when I tried to convey their significance in Oliver and Felicity's lives but if I did not or if there is anything else potentially triggering in the chapter or even in the fic as a whole please let me know so that I can add warnings or improve what I have written. Stay safe and healthy in mind and body everyone.
> 
> Serious stuff over with: THEY DID IT! Our babies had a date and then they had their dessert and I just want them to be this happy forever!
> 
> I'll see you all in the new year for more shenanigans!


	12. the other side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity are finally in a good place together. Now it's time to get back to their mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New year, new decade, new chapter! The response to the last one was so wonderful, so thank you to everybody who read!
> 
> Let's get on with it...

**Chapter XII – the other side**

He wakes up warm again. Warm. Comfortable. Relaxed. His Felicity is in his arms.

And she is naked.

There is no ignoring that fact. They both are. Legs entwined, hips pressed together, arms wrapped around each other.

He is hard, again. Which is some sort of miracle after the night that they just had, but it is another undeniable fact.

She is _in his arms_. Sleepy. Sated. Basking in the wake of the pleasure that _he_ gave her. Tired because _he_ wore her out. He has never been so genuinely pleased with himself in his life.

He has never been so happy.

*************************

The morning is spent motionless. Oliver has not been motionless in years. He does not normally sleep, yet he has slept for more than six hours. He does not stay still, but he has passed hours in stillness wrapped around Felicity. His daily routine involves waking mere hours after falling to sleep and then working out, beating the streets, gathering information. It is nearly mid-morning and the only thing that he has done so far is gaze at the woman he loves.

She is somehow even more beautiful in the dusky light of their bedroom. _Their_ bedroom. The curtains let in soft morning sunlight, adding a glow the room without allowing the daylight into it. There is a gap in the centre through which a bright ray shines, haloing around Felicity’s face and making her hair shine. It has made her turn into him, away from the glare on her eyes, her face burrowing into his shoulder. She is so cute.

Eventually, her little movements become more frequent and her breathing faster as she wakes. Blinking, her eyes shift from confusion to awareness. Her chin tilts up to look up at him. A blush spreads down her chest as she remembers the night before, as she feels the position that they are in. Oliver smiles down at her, “So… _that_ happened.” She says, eliciting a chuckle from him.

“I’m glad it did.”

“Me too.” He covers her returning smile with a kiss.

Felicity should have known better than to let him kiss her. Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that they had calmed their need for one another’s bodies the night before – heck, _Felicity_ would have thought that. But all it takes is one loving, though initially chaste kiss for them to devolve into full-on making out, hips grinding together.

Oliver rolls back, pulling her with him so that she is lying half on top of him. It gives him the access to her that he clearly wanted and he happily takes advantage. By the time that he gets around to to hoisting her all the way on top of him, his hands have managed to map across the whole of her body. Not one to sit passively, she grabs his wrists and pulls them to settle at her hips. He lets her, waiting to see what she does next.

She smooths her hands down his chest, fingertips lightly scraping across the surface of his skin. She catalogues every scar, every bit of unbroken skin with her eyes, her hands, her mouth, making her way down, down, down. His mind becomes a frenzy under her attentions, fingers clenching and unclenching around the soft flesh near her ass before he loses every ounce of control he has left and rears up, twisting and slamming her to the mattress beneath them.

They pass the rest of the morning in complete bliss.

*************************

The rumbling of Felicity’s stomach some time long past midday is what eventually forces them out of bed. Oliver whips her up omelettes filled with veggies as well as the cheesy good stuff because he is insistent on providing her with a balanced diet. He takes five-a-day far too seriously.

They lounge about for the rest of the afternoon, reluctant to acknowledge anything outside of the two of them and their love for one another. But the evening does come eventually, and it brings with it a new kind of glint to Felicity’s eyes. She insists that, as they took the previous night off (and he is _so_ glad that they did), they should get back to work. He is shocked by his unwillingness to do so – usually he cannot wait to get back into his suit – but all he really wants to do is stay with her. Ultimately, though, he would do anything for her. Even if it means leaving her side. If this is what she wants to do, then this is what they are going to do.

He becomes especially invested in her decision to start looking into Buchinsky and the circumstances of his abduction when she mentions that she suspects a higher-up in QC of being involved. It is unacceptable to him to entertain the thought of her working for somebody so corrupt, so unpredictable. If there is someone at the company working with or for a known human trafficker, who is to say that Buchinsky will not turn around and demand a supply? Who is to say that the unknown would not look to their employees as a source of that supply? Felicity tells him that he is overreacting and that their real worry is that they may be using the company as a front for illicit activities or even embezzling money from one of the projects. Oliver does not care, no matter how unlikely or how irrational his fears may be, there is still a chance that they are founded. And for as long as they are founded, he needs to be extra vigilant where his girl is concerned. He is not going out on the streets until he actually has a target to go after, he needs to be next to her for as long as possible.

Being seated just behind her and watching her work is always a privilege. She is magnificent. He does not understand a single line of what she is doing on the screen but he can marvel at the way her fingers blur as she types, at the furrow of her brow and the plumpness of her lip as she bites it with her teeth in her state of utter concentration.

As he is watching her, he sees, somewhere in the corner of her screen, the words **GHOST_FOX_GODDESS**.

“What’s that?” he asks, pointing.

“Oh…” _that blush_, “It’s my hacker handle. From college.”

“Hacker handle?”

“The name that I go by when I’m hacking. Sort of like a secret identity. Like your hood. To protect me from the crazies on the internet. Of which, I now realise, I can be counted amongst the number of.”

“You’re not crazy.” He laughs, “Well, not by the internet’s standards at least.” She glares at him, making him clear his throat and move on, asking “Ghost Fox Goddess?”

“Yes.” She stands strong, “Problem?”

“No. It’s perfect.” His lips find her neck, chasing her blush.

“Oliver.” Half-moan, half-protest. “I’m working!” He sighs, but withdraws, letting her get back to it.

*************************

A week passes. Maybe the best week of Oliver’s entire life. Every day, he gets to wake up with the woman he loves, spend the morning with her in his arms, take down bad guys in the evening and then wrap her right back in his arms fall asleep with her at night.

With information from Felicity’s target finding program, Oliver is tracking some random asshole with a god complex when he hears talk of Buchinsky. There is going to be another auction. An attempt to make up for the failure of the previous one. Oliver intends to storm it just like before but Felicity quickly shoots him down. She is convinced that it is a trap, that he will only get himself captured or killed if he goes through with that plan. Buchinsky expects the Vigilante to show up, what he does not expect is a handsome, wealthy man and the beautiful blonde on his arm to come in and destroy his operation from the dance floor, dressed in all of their finery.

Oliver is furious at the suggestion, unable to even comprehend taking Felicity into the field – into danger. Their argument is nasty, yelling at one another and getting more and more heated with each comment thrown. As with most things between the two of them, it leads to a fiery culmination in their bedroom, and it is only in the sleepy afterglow that they are finally able to calm down enough to apologise, to talk and to reason with one another.

“I can’t… Felicity, you can’t ask me to let you out there with me. This guy, Buchinsky… he’s dangerous, Felicity. He’s already got away from me several times. He’s outthought me every time since the first. I need to be able to have all of my attention on finding him and stopping him. I can’t afford to be worrying about you the whole time. You already said that this is a trap, I need you to be safe.”

“You need to get into the building.” She insists.

“And I will. As a bidder, with the cleverest girl in the world in my ear.”

“You’ll be less of a threat with me there. Less suspicious. No one would be expecting the Vigilante to be the guy with someone on his arm.”

“But I won’t have a clue where anyone is or what to do. I won’t be able to focus on a fight if I’m busy worrying about where you are and whether or not you’re okay. I need you, Felicity, I do. But I need you somewhere safe, where you can do what you do best. Where you can have eyes on the building and you can guide me to where I need to go. _Please_.”

She pauses, deliberating, “You’ll stay safe?” he nods, “And you’ll listen to me?”

“Always.”

“Okay. Okay. I don’t want you to lose focus and as much as I want to be there with you to keep you safe, I know that I’ll be more efficient from here.” She agrees, sealing it with a kiss.

*************************

Daytime suit on (though, technically, it is night time), flechettes hidden discretely around his body, a gun slung around each shoulder and a comm sat snugly in his ear connecting him to his beloved, he strides up to the entrance of yet another warehouse in the Glades. A swagger is added to his step, confidence oozing from him despite his lack of any sort of expensive car, army of bodyguards or escort of any kind.

It is easy for him to put across the persona he is going for. Any slightly different life choices would have made him exactly the kind of man who would willingly come to these events. The cocky arrogance of the men in the room is something that has been instilled in him since birth. Some combination of endless money, no responsibilities, genetic luck and never suffering the consequences of his actions until the age of twenty-two makes him ideally suited for the position. That, combined with the dark, violent edge that three years in hell has provided him is what makes fitting in easy.

He prowls the room, effortlessly evading anyone who looks like they may want to strike up a conversation and side-stepping the wandering hands of the women not being sold. The comm faintly picks up the soft tapping of Felicity’s fingers on her keyboard and the sound is surprisingly good at helping him relax enough to appear as if he is enjoying himself.

“Okay, Mister Queen. I’ve found where they’re holding the girls. North east corridor, fifth door down. As for Buchinsky, I haven’t got a direct line on him yet but there is a concentrated mass of people in the centre of the building and I suspect that they’re either with him of they’re waiting for him.”

“Copy.” He barely moves his mouth, trusting Felicity’s equipment to pick up on his murmured response. He continues to take stock of the room, monitoring the location of Buchinsky’s men, memorising their movements and building up their rotor in his head. Felicity’s information allows him to form a plan of attack. All that is left is confirmation of Buchinsky’s position.

“Oliver. Oliver, I have him. He just walked into the room. They were waiting for him.” Bursting into action, he deftly works through the crowd and makes his way to the back. His timing is perfect and he is able to steal into the corridor with no resistance. After pulling on a mask, he grabs one of his guns, the weapon managing to feel both foreign and familiar in his hand. He misses his bow.

He sucks in a deep breath, steeling himself before the coming battle and hardening his emotions, letting instinct take over. The door splinters under his foot, opening to reveal a room full of the worst kind of people out there. They do not get a chance to reach for their own guns before his shots have cut through them, six men falling in quick succession. Rounding the corner to the room reveals Buchinsky sat behind an ostentatious desk, surrounded by yet more men. All of whom have their guns at the ready.

A thought flashes through his mind, Felicity’s voice behind it, _What if Buchinsky wanted those men gone? Did he place them at the door intending for them to fall, did he plan this? _There is little time to dwell on the idea though, when he is seconds away from being pumped full of bullets. He dives towards them, they would not be expecting him to engage them head on, and his fist crushes rib bones as he hits one of them. As the guy drops, he lets himself fall too, avoiding the fists headed in his own direction. The movement allows for him to sweep his leg at someone’s knees, bringing a third man to the floor. He uses their necks as footrests as he gets up, certainly choking them beyond their ability to function, possibly damaging their spines. How badly injured they are does not matter, they will not be getting up either way.

Swift punches take down the others, who have been unable to keep up with his lightning fast attacks. He is aware of several blows meeting his own skin but cannot feel them. Adrenaline numbs his skin. Specks of blood shower the room, most from his fists, where both his inemies’ and his own skin is splitting from the force he’s exerting but some is from his face, a cut bleeding into his mouth making each exhale a violent shower.

Time passes strangely when he is fighting. What must have been seconds feels simultaneously like no time at all and hours. Then it is over. Oliver stands before a pile of bodies, his first gun somewhere in the chaos, his second in his hand. Pointing right at Lester Buchinsky.

Who is smiling.

Oliver growls.

“The Vigilante, I assume?” Lester questions. Oliver is not wearing his suit, but his face is covered in the mask that he donned as soon as he left the auction room. “Or do you prefer Oliver Queen?” Oliver freezes. “You really should be more careful, Mr. Queen. You never know who might be following you around. Especially when you’re injured.” No. Where did they follow him? _How did he miss that_? “I wondered where you were going at first. After all, what business could a vigilante have on a suburban street on the edge of the Glades. Then we saw your pretty blonde nurse girl. Felicity Smoak. How does a dead man meet an IT girl from his family’s company, Mister Queen?”

“Don’t you talk about her!” his control snaps, “Keep her name from your lips.”

“Protective, Oliver? So much good that’ll do you, when I’m selling her to the highest bidder.”

Oliver cocks his gun.

“Ah, ah, ah. I don’t think you want to do that. See, my men are having the pleasure of meeting your lovely Felicity as we speak and I don’t think you want anything to happen to her, do you?”

“Felicity?” Oliver asks into his comm, fighting to keep the panic from his voice, “Felicity.”

“Oliver, he’s lying. There’s no one here.” Before her words can sink into him, there is a crash from her end. The sound of glass breaking, tables toppling and then, worst of all, Felicity’s scream.

“Felicity!” he is frantic now and not even trying to hide it, “Baby?” All he can hear is the sound of destruction and his heart splintering.

An unfamiliar burning fills his eyes. He realises that he is on the verge of tears. Vulnerability is not an option, so he pushes his feelings aside and refocuses on Buchinsky.

“What do you want from me, from her?”

“I want you to leave my operation alone. You do that and I’ll make sure that she stays nice and safe in a room with a bed and regular food and water. Maybe even a bathroom. If you don’t… well there’s no guarantee what I’ll do with her. Maybe I’ll pass her around my men, maybe I’ll give her to a rich man looking for some… _help_ around the house. I might even keep her for myself.” It is his muscles that burn now, the effort of holding back almost too much. But he cannot attack, not when he does not know where Felicity is. “I’ll let you leave here now and I’ll make sure that she gets to that cell relatively unharmed. You can go back to your life of taking out my competitors and I’ll send you lovely little updates so that you know she’s still safe.”

Desperate, unable to think of any other solution, Oliver nods, making a deal with the devil. He walks out alone.

Broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, Felicity had to get abducted at least once. It's Arrow, I don't make the rules ;)


	13. Storm in the quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver fights to get Felicity back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 13! My favourite number is 13. I don't know if this is my favourite chapter ever, but it definitely has some of my favourite stuff in it. It's another big one for our favourite couple.
> 
> In other news, it's the last day of Christmas so I'm officially entering the mourning phase. I'll feel better in like... September.
> 
> Also, some content warnings (I'm putting them at the start this time as they're mostly spoiler-free):  
There is a really creepy guy in charge of keeping Felicity locked up and it's implied that he threatened to sexually abuse her. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN THOUGH.  
Oliver is in a bad place so it gets very violent at one stage and a little graphic.  
Felicity is intentionally hurt during her captivity.

**Chapter XIII – Storm in the quiet**

Half dazed, he makes his way home. He is semi aware of moving fast, feet pounding the concrete, wind whipping through his hair but all that he can truly feel is the agony of his heart. It is difficult to truly believe that she is already gone, that they _took_ her, a part of him feels like if he gets home quickly enough he can save her. Like if he rushes – if he just _tries_ – he will walk through their front door and see her at her desk. He will wrap her in his arms, kiss her neck and make love to her until neither of them can move any more. Keep her safe beneath his body. Stop anyone from ever touching her. Make sure that she never comes to any harm.

But when he gets home, it is not to a warm smile and open arms, it is to a door as shattered as his heart. It is to a ransacked living room, a torn up bedroom. It is to Felicity’s computers, completely destroyed. That is the final straw. That is what makes it real, what makes him realise that she is really gone. She is somebody’s prisoner, indefinitely, and if he does anything to retaliate all it will do is hurt her.

He does not know how to save her.

All of the strength leaves him and his legs buckle, leaving him to crumple to the floor. He lets out an anguished scream. _It’s all his fault, all his fault, all his fault_. If he had just _stayed away_ – it he had not been so _weak_ – she would be safe. At home. Content.

He does not get up for a very long time.

*************************

The agony never fades, it is a constant, and it will never leave. Not until Felicity is safe again. The numbness to all other feelings though, that does pass. Cold nothingness gives way to a fiery heat that contains only fury. Passion. Determination. He might not be able to save her in the way that he usually would, but he will be damned if he just sits back and lets her rot in a cell because of him.

He rises.

*************************

Everywhere he goes, he leaves behind a bloody trail. Unable to directly attack Buchinsky’s operation, he goes after anyone and everyone who has any sort of connection that he can get away with. It gets him nothing.

Gone is the man who baked delicate honey cakes for a girl he liked. Gone is the man who held her so sweetly. Gone is the man who made love to the woman of his dreams. In his place is a true monster, something born of the creature he thought he had left in Hong Kong and of the feeling of true loss, true guilt, the likes of which he had never, even after everything, experienced before in his life.

_“Say hello to your boyfriend, Blondie.” A man’s voice, off camera. Probably the cameraman. Felicity’s face was the only thing in frame. She had a split lip, likely received during her abduction, and half of her face was varying shades of black, blue and purple. It looked like her face was smacked off a solid surface – a wall or the floor – and the scrapes running down her cheek suggested that she was dragged across it too._

_There is no changing his girl though. Whilst her face may have looked broken, the fire in her eyes betrayed the fighter that she is. Her jaw was set and her only response was to glare into the camera._

_“C’mon, Girlie, don’t you have anything to say to him? How’s he gonna know that you’re alive if you won’t even tell him the date?” The comment gave her pause, a battle warring its way across her face. She clearly did not want to talk, did not want to give them the satisfaction, but she also knew how worried he would be, and wanted to let him know she is okay. Or, at least, as okay as she could be._

_A moment’s deliberation passed before she begrudgingly opened her mouth and spoke the date, “Sunday. August twenty-second, two-thousand and ten.”_

_“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Felicity’s expression flashed with fear. Whatever look the cameraman gave her must have put that look on her face. A look that she was exposed to because of his failures._

_Oliver did not think that he could break any more than he already had. He was wrong._

In the back of his mind is the knowledge that she would not want this. She would not want him to trade in the last shreds of his humanity on her behalf. She would not want him to lose himself just because he lost her. She is not there though, and any humanity that he did have, he gave to her. Without her, all that is left is a beast.

Going home is impossible. There is no home without her in it. Every corner is just another memory, so beautiful that it can only bring him pain. The whole place smells of her, of them, but worst of all, it is quiet. It is never quiet when Felicity’s home. There are always the sounds of her babbling, the clack of her heels or her fingers on the keyboard, the clatter of pans as he cooks.

He makes sure to tidy up after her abductors. He repairs everything that he can and replaces the rest of it. He gets new hardware for her set up and carefully extracts all of the internal devices from the destroyed equipment, saving it for her as he knows that she can fix anything computer related. He disposes of the destroyed casings and monitors.

_The next video arrived in much the same manner as the first. The only visible thing is Felicity’s face brightening a dark background, but some of her brightness seemed to have dimmed. She was not visibly hurt, her movements and breathing did not suggest any physical changes off camera but there was something in her eyes, like a cloud darkening them. Fear… doubt even._

_“What’s the date, Little Lady?” the derogatory term brought back some of the fierceness in Felicity, making her throw a dirty look behind the camera._

_Regardless, she still responded, “Monday. August twenty-third, two-thousand and ten.” Her voice was strong._

_The camera angle shifted, clearly the user moving to turn it off and in the second between the movement and the end of the recording, Oliver caught Felicity’s flinch._

Once everything is back in order, he takes the few things that he truly needs and retreats to the Foundry. He sleeps there for three nights before an idea comes to him.

*************************

Wearing another suit nearly destroys him. It makes him remember her face when she saw him dressed for the mission that began all of this, the promises that he whispered in her ears as he kissed a gentle path from them to her lips, her breathy gasp in response to his night time plans. Promises not kept. Plans not seen through.

_Whilst none of the videos showed anything more than her face, Oliver still felt like Felicity was more hunched in the third one. Something in the angle of her neck, her shoulders, it told him that she was curving in on herself. Out of fear? Out of lost hope? There was no way for him to know but he sure as hell knew that it was his fault. His Felicity should never have been in that position in the first place._

_She needed no prompting, that time, simply stating “Tuesday. August twenty-fourth, two-thousand and ten.” In a steady voice. Quieter than usual, less confident than he was used to, but steady all the same. That was it. The shortest video so far. Nothing in it that outwardly displayed anything that would mean her harm, but the shortness of it was what worried him. Because not once – not _once_ – had she displayed any of that fight that he knew was in her._

The suit is a necessity though. After all, he is meeting with a high ranking member of the city’s elite and an appointment with Lester Buchinsky is not something to be sniffed at. He stalks in, the cold, hard killer that he is on the inside in full view. Several people shrink back from him, frightened. Good.

_The fourth time was what truly destroyed him, as if he was not destroyed enough. It was as short as the third, and almost identical barring the date, “Wednesday. August twenty-fifth, two-thousand and ten.” No, that was not the problem. The problem, the smallest little thing that sent Oliver over and beyond any ledge that he was still clinging to was the tremor in her voice as she spoke. The way that it broke as she said ‘ten’. The way that she refused to look into the camera as she spoke._

“Oliver Queen. I wasn’t expecting to see you here… ever. Never mind so soon.” Buchinsky gives him a slimy smile.

“I have a proposal. Mutually beneficial.” It is difficult to be more than a monosyllabic caveman.

“And what might this proposal be?” Condescending. The cat that got the cream. It would not shock Oliver if this had been the plan all along.

“I think that we can both agree that I’m a better fighter than your five best men combined, can’t we, Lester?” a reluctant nod, “So, especially as I killed so many of them recently, I figure you could use a man of my particular… talents.” Another nod, “I will work for you.” The smirk becomes a grin, “I have conditions.”

“You’re not exactly in a position to bargain, Queen.”

“And you’re not exactly in a position to refuse me, Buchinsky. I know your operation. I know more than you probably realise. My last attack alone could have crippled you, factor in the many other blows you’ve suffered recently, most at my own hands, and I would imagine that you’re getting pretty desperate.” The grin has dropped, “What I propose is that you use me as a hit man. Send me to deal with thugs who owe you money, business partners who need a little fear treatment. You’ll be able to rebuild in a fraction of the time with my assistance. In return, you give me Felicity back.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Do you not think that I know that as soon as you get your hands on her you’ll flee? No. You can’t have her back. But… I will give you access to her. For each successful hit you get twenty-four hours with her to use as you please. And, of course, our previous deal will remain intact. She stays safe and untouched and you don’t harm my operation in any way. Do we have a deal?”

Oliver wants Felicity back, but he was expecting this. “You let me see her first. To check that she really is safe. Then we have a deal.”

“Deal.” Their handshake repulses Oliver.

The worst part of it is that Felicity could have found her location in seconds. Felicity could have figured out a way to save herself and directed him to do it. But Felicity is somewhere that he cannot find. He has done what he can with her computers and has managed to set up a search with one of her pre-done programmes but they got her to wherever she is very professionally. There is no trace of the operation that can be found without Felicity’s personal hacking rather than just her code. There is no way to find her unless they move her, and Oliver knows that they will not do that.

*************************

She looks so small. Not in the way that she had felt when she was beneath him, no, then, she had been small and dainty, protected beneath his large form but strong nonetheless. Her tiny body corded through with muscle. Here, she looks vulnerable, diminutive even. Curled in on herself, taking up barely any room on an already miniature bed in an already miniature room. He can see the shadows of bruises lining the little skin bared to the air but no blood, no other signs of damage.

This small glimpse of her is all that he will be afforded for now, so he drinks it in, consuming the sight of her in order to infuse himself with the will to continue, to complete his plan. He will need all the resolve he can get if he is to deal with Buchinsky for the foreseeable future. Though he does not intend to allow it to last long.

A deep breath, one last glimpse, then he turns away, removing all traces of emotion from his eyes and letting the guards cover them once again so that he will not see where they are keeping her.

*************************

The first mission is simple. There is somebody causing trouble and they need taking out. Oliver does what recon he can, pleased to find that the man is not much better than Buchinsky, and then he moves in.

There are very few guards around the target which suggests that he is not as important, or not as wealthy as Buchinsky but the presence of any guards at all is indicative of the fact that he is powerful enough, and that is all that matters. Though, as far as mattering goes, the number of guards is not relevant to Oliver. Five or fifty, they are all about to become collateral in his mission to save the love of his life.

“I’m sorry, Baby.” He mutters under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut as he pictures her, glowing and smiling up at him as she had during those precious nights that they spent together. He never wants to think of her as she had been when last he saw her. After a beat, opens them, dispelling the image and then lets loose his first arrow, directly into the heart of the first guard.

A cry of shock cuts through the air, the other guards scrambling to reform around the Vigilante’s latest target. Their heads whip around, guns following as they try to catch sight of him. He gives them a break, swinging himself over the barricade he was crouched behind and dropping to the floor in front of them, the arrow that he shot before the movement taking two of their guns out of the equation.

Landing, he rolls before releasing two more arrows and piercing through the barrels of remaining guards’ guns. Now unarmed, they advance. They are good, Oliver concedes, watching them rally together in a way that maintains their cover over his target whilst also allowing them all to engage him. He is still better.

He drops and rolls once again, darting between a gap in their formation faster than they can process. The move puts him behind them and none of them are prepared. Rising quickly, he hooks his arm around the nearest man, flipping his own body in a way that twists the neck he is encircling. _Snap_. Dead. He feels no remorse. The descent of his flip brings him across the dead man’s back, guiding his body to land on his feet as he drops the corpse.

The others seem stunned, shocked still by his quick and violent display, then, all at once, they burst into action. A flurry of fists and kicks meets Oliver. He dodges most but a few land, forcing the breath out of his lungs. It does not matter how good he is, if he stays in this position, he will lose. Narrowing his focus, he catches an arm in two hands, receiving blows from his other assailants for his efforts. The leverage allows him to pull the man attached to the arm in front of his body, forcing the others to hit their colleague rather than him. Lifting his leg, he kicks with all his strength, crushing ribs under his feet and bowling them over. Disoriented and on the floor, they struggle to push off one another, giving him the time to reach his target.

There is a gun in his face when he meets the man, but it is easy to disarm him. He pins the guy’s neck to a wall with one hand and uses the other to let off several shots, putting down the guards. He barely notices the scrabbling of his target, trying to pry his fingers away as he turns the gun slowly, cold violence glaring from his eyes, and shoots once more. Mission accomplished.

He leaves.

He feels nothing.

*************************

The following morning, he is torn from his fitful sleep by his phone ringing. A call from Buchinsky, _congratulating_ him on his work. It fills him with fury, the fact that this man believes murder is something to be _congratulated_ for. To be _rewarded_ for. At the same time, he will not turn down the particular reward offered. A chance to see his Felicity.

He takes his time preparing for the visit, knowing that everything must go perfectly if he is to make his plan work. At the meeting site, a different place to where he had met Buchinsky the first time, he is searched, every inch of his body is goes through a pat down to make sure that he has nothing on him. They come up empty handed.

The car ride is silent, just Oliver and three goons in the back of a van, Oliver’s face blindfolded, which seems pointless as there are no windows for him to see through anyway. After a while, the car stops. Oliver finds himself being guided inside once again, checking his memories and matching the journey. Left, twenty steps, right, thirty-six steps, right, and so on. His memory of this place is perfect.

When they reach the viewing room that he had seen her in before, they whip the blindfold from Oliver’s eyes and his gaze lands on Buchinsky. It takes everything in him not to leap forwards and gouge out his heart with his bare hands.

“Oliver.” Oliver grunts in response.

“You did a good job. Sent a good message.” Oliver nods, not wanting to speak to the scum in front of him, he just wants to see Felicity. “You have five minutes.” Oliver’s heart leaps. This is what he had been hoping for, but he had not expected it so soon.

Another man shows him in. He is short and stocky. Sleazy. As the door opens, Oliver is so distracted by the thought of getting to touch Felicity again that he almost misses it when the guard opens his mouth, “Blondie.” Oliver freezes, watching Felicity flinch back from where she lies on the bed, “You have a visitor.” _That voice_. Oliver knows that voice. This is the man who filmed Felicity. Who made her flinch in those videos. Who put fear into her eyes. Oliver is going to kill him. He is going to make it hurt. He memorises the man’s face.

But now is not the time for revenge or for vendettas, now is the time for seeing his girl. He pushes past the shorter man, making sure to add a little extra shove in his push as he glares. A noise from within the cell pulls his focus back to what is happening inside. And then everything else fades away and it’s just him and Felicity. “Oliver?” she rasps, throat sounding sore.

“Felicity.” The relief is impossible to keep from his voice.

“Oliver!” she runs to him, throwing herself into his arms. He cradles her to his body, pressing his face into the nape of her neck. She smells different, more sterile, like whatever she has been given to clean herself with is stripping her of her natural scent. But it is still Felicity, and she still smells like _her_ even under the lemony bleach smell.

“You’re here. You’re here!” she kisses him desperately and he reciprocates, basking in the glory of having her in his arms again. She pulls back, “Why are you here?”

“I don’t have much time.” He remembers himself, letting her slip back down his body so that he can look her over. “I need to know, did anyone hurt you? Are you okay? How are they treating you?”

“I’m okay. It’s not too bad, just quiet and a little boring. I got a bit banged up on my way here but it was nothing too bad.” She’s lying. If not outright, then at least by omission. There is something wrong. He runs his hands along her, turning her body so that he can see and he notices that she is favouring his left side.

“What did they do to you?” he asks, furious.

“Nothin-”

“_Don’t_. Don’t say _nothing_. What happened to your side?”

She bites her lip, eyes shifting to the door as if looking for the _monster_ who is acting as her jailor. “Tell me.” He begs, softly enough that no cameras could hear.

“The… the guy from the videos. Who was recording me.”

“I know the one.” He growls.

“He sometimes likes to take his frustrations out on me.” She admits. Oliver lets his hand graze over her hip, tugging up her shirt to reveal a purple bruise speckled with red.

“I’m going to tear him to pieces.” Oliver whirls around, forgetting himself as his vision starts to go red.

“No! Not for me. It’s fine, Oliver. I can handle it.”

“But you shouldn’t _have_ to.”

“Oliver.” She sighs, opening her mouth to continue.

The door opens. “Time’s up.”

“No.” Oliver clings to Felicity’s waist protectively, holding her within the shelter of his body.

“It’s okay Oliver,” Felicity cradles his face in her hands, “I’ll see you soon.” She is holding back tears, but her fingertips grazing his ears have reminded him of his plan. He lets his hands circle her wrists, moving his middle finger up to hers and guiding her left hands closer to his right ear. She looks confused but he covers it with a kiss.

“I love you.” He whispers against her lips, “I’ll come back for you.”

And then he is gone.

*************************

Alone again, and thankful that her captor has followed Oliver from the room, locking the door behind him, Felicity’s fist tightens around the small item in her hand. A comm. One that went almost completely unnoticed in Oliver’s ear due in part to Felicity’s brilliant engineering making it both extremely tiny and the exact tone of human skin, and also partly due to the cover of Oliver’s hair.

When she sits down, she feels a bump under her bum as if there is something in the pocket of her jeans. Which is impossible, as she has nothing to put in her jeans in the first place. But Oliver might have. He had certainly had his hands on her ass enough as he had been kissing her with her legs around his waist.

She slides down the bed, placing her head on her hand and slipping the comm into her ear. Immediately, the sound of Oliver’s angry breaths fills her ear, comforting. She moves her other hand down to pull up the bed covers and pulls the item from her pocket as she does. It is a long, thin fletchette. One of Oliver’s own making. It is something that could be used both as a lock pick and as a dagger. He has weaponised her.

She waits.

*************************

As soon as Oliver is away from his enemies, he speaks. “Felicity. Don’t talk back or react. I don’t want them to suspect anything. I’m coming for you, Baby. I’m coming. I just need a little time. There is a tracker embedded in the fletchette. Keep it hidden. I love you so much, I’m going to be back so soon, I promise.”

*************************

Another day passes, the newspapers and tabloids running articles about the increase in the Vigilante’s violence over the time. More bodies, more blood, more gruesome methods of murder. Oliver keeps up his chatter to Felicity. He could not remember ever talking so much but he needed to let her know that he was always thinking of her so he found himself telling her about his second year on Lian Yu and his year in Hong Kong. He hears her stifle her reactions a few times and once she even whispers “_Oliver_.” when he speaks of Akio’s death. But other than that, all he gets from her are the sounds of her breathing.

He has all of the tools to break her out already and it destroys him that he is unable to but he still needs to organise somewhere safe for them to escape to.

He receives two more videos in the time, and he hears them being made beforehand too, which only solidifies his resolve to make the person behind the camera suffer but she is so much stronger in them, like knowing that they are going to be together again is helping her to bear the pain. He hopes that it is. Because hearing her try to stop the screams of pain that come as she is beaten is shattering his own strength.

When the final night of the month comes, all of that pain coalesces as he is able to let loose all of the agony of the last week on those who truly deserve it.

*************************

The tracker gives him her location and he spends the night and day watching over it, planning his attack. “I’m coming.” Are his last words, spoken down the comm, before he drops into the fray. In the beginning, he uses his arrows to take out as many of the people on the outside as possible, but as soon as he is within hand-to-hand range, he changes his technique. He needs to hear their bones crunch and feel their skin split under his own body. He needs to know that he has inflicted all of the pain that they have given Felicity right back onto them.

Ruthless, he snaps necks, he smashes faces with his bow, he cuts them open and leaves them to bleed out on the floor, their insides spilling out. There is no stopping him. He becomes a machine fuelled by rage and he rampages through the building like a man possessed. Buchinsky may not be there, but the man who had hurt Felicity is.

Bodies drop in his wake, groaning, limp, bloody. He can barely remember anything that he does, any move that he makes between the front door and Felicity’s but he can feel his throat is sore from screaming, he knows that he is covered in red gore. He is the worst version of himself, the one that he never wanted Felicity to see, but he cannot stop himself. Especially not once he catches a glimpse of short, stocky and sleazy.

*************************

Once she hears Oliver begin his battle, she slips out the fletchette. Oliver may have intended for it to be a worst case scenario method of defence for her but there is no way that she is just going to sit there and wait for him to get hurt. She is going to meet him halfway. The guy who is usually stationed outside her door, the one who likes to hurt her, who has made some very realistic threats to do unspeakable things to her is gone. He does not respond to her call, so she assumes that he has gone to join the fight.

Oliver is screaming in her ear now, the frenzy of the battle getting to him and the emotion in those screams makes her want to cry. First things first. She jams the non-pointy end of the fletchette into the lock mechanism and twists, feeling for the drop that will let her open the door. She thanks that shady guy who was nice to her in one of the casinos her mom had worked at. When she had been ten, he had taught her all manner of tricks that he had definitely picked up whilst breaking the law, lock picking being one of them.

The door swings open.

Nobody is there, the hallway having emptied to funnel everyone into Oliver’s path. The sounds from the comm are becoming increasingly disturbing. Felicity breaks into a run, hoping that she is going the right way. Not long after setting off, she begins to hear the sounds that the comm is broadcasting with her other ear as well, and she knows that she is close.

*************************

There are bodies all around him. Death on every side. But the man directly in front of him, the man on his knees begging for mercy, he is still alive. Just barely.

His face is unrecognisable, his skin torn and sliced and flayed all over. His bones are broken, his blood is pooling around him and he looks truly pathetic. Oliver knocks an arrow, aiming it at his eye.

“Oliver!” comes a cry, echoing through the comm and he looks up to see a blur of blonde fly past him. Straight at the man who had been sneaking up on him from behind.

“Felicity!” he yells, forgetting about causing Felicity’s torturer pain and letting go of the arrow, ending him. He spins around and he can see the love of his life as she engages with an armed man. He knocks another arrow, taking aim but they are moving to erratically and Felicity is right between him and the man she is attacking so he cannot get a clean shot. The man suddenly yells out, and Oliver sees a flash of metal. The fletchette, Felicity had stabbed him.

An idea sparks, Oliver readjusts his aim and his arrow cuts through the leg, making the man fall to the ground. Felicity scrambles, her little arm wrapping around the guy’s neck in an attempt to choke him. It stops a lot of the movement and Oliver is able to see the blood spreading from Felicity’s stab wound just before he pulls out his own fletchette and throws it. Directly into their final enemy.

*************************

Felicity stands, turning to the man who stole her heart in shock. She cannot believe that she just did that. Well, she can. She would do anything to save Oliver Queen. He looks wary, like he is expecting her rejection or something. After everything that they have been through. The man is ridiculous. No matter his body count, no matter what things he has done in the name of her safety, he is a hero to her. He is a hero to all of those girls whom he has freed from a life of sexual slavery. He is a hero to so many people and Felicity could not stop loving him if she tried.

She does not want to try.

She throws herself at him. He catches her. “Get me out of here.” She says, snuggling into him.

A sob breaks free from his chest, “I’m so sorry. I should have been more careful. I love you so much. I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me.” He begs.

“I could never hate you, Oliver Queen. I love you.” He kisses her. Briefly. They are still in danger, after all and then he sweeps her up into his arms.

“I can walk.” She says. It is true, she can. It hurts a lot because she has what she thinks is a few cracked ribs but it is still true.

“Please. Just let me.” Oliver says and then he clutches her to his chest, bridal style, and they leave. Together.

*************************

He does not take her back to their townhouse, telling her that it has been compromised. That it is too dangerous until Buchinsky is off the board. It makes sense, so she lets him take her to the high rise apartment that he organised through A.R.G.U.S. to use as a safe house until that time.

He carefully patches her up, wrapping her ribs up tight and letting her know that none are broken, just cracked. She has a few cuts and bruises that he treats with glue and a numbing cream as well, not wanting her to be in any more pain. It is actually very sweet. She then returns the favour, making sure that she checks Oliver all over for injury as he was not even aware that he had been grazed by a bullet, so single minded had he been in his mission to save her. She knows that they need to talk about the things that he did and the repercussions of those actions at some point, but she only just got him back. She intends to enjoy being in his arms for at least one night.

They settle in for the night together, content just to hold one another after ten days apart and far too hurt and tired to initiate anything else. They slip into a peaceful sleep.

*************************

The next morning, Felicity awakes feeling safe for the first time in a while, the strong arms of her man wrapped around her, protecting her. He is already awake and staring down at her like she is the sun and he has been trapped in the dark for years.

“Morning.” She says, turning into his chest.

“Felicity.” He whispers, tenderness filling his voice. It is a vast contrast to the anguish that he had screamed out the night before.

“Hi.” She says back. “Thank you for coming for me.”

“Thank you for saving my life.” He smiles.

“I love you.” She kisses his chest, right over his heart. “I will always love you.” They have a lot to discuss, but that is the only important thing. Letting him know that she sees his good heart and she adores who he is. Letting him know that there is no way he can chase her off no matter what.

“I love you so much.” A tear slips down his eye. “I can’t lose you. I can’t ever lose you again. It will kill me if anything happens to you.”

“Nothing will. You won’t lose me. You always have my heart, and I trust you to always be there for me.” It is a big thing for her to say. She has never trusted anybody not to leave before. Oliver knows it. He knows just how much she struggles with trust and his mouth gapes at her words.

He blinks at her for a few seconds before swooping in for a kiss. Before she can escalate it, he pulls back and looks at her deep in the eyes before blowing her mind.

“Marry me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup. He went there.


	14. Nowhere to hide from all of this madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver just proposed. Need I say more?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this is a few minutes late. My internet has decided to die so I've had to use my phone's personal hotspot to get internet on my laptop so that I could post and it's just been a bit of a hassle.
> 
> We're so close to the end now and whilst I'm sad to say goodbye to UDC, I'm really excited for you to see these last few chapters and to move on to the next part of this journey!
> 
> I really hope that you like this one...

**Chapter XIV – Nowhere to hide from all of this madness**

For a moment, she is so silent and still that Oliver thinks that he has genuinely broken her.

“Felicity?” he asks, beginning to wonder if he has gone too far, if he has asked too much of her. She has given him more than he ever had a right to ask for and she has made him so happy but what if she does not feel for him as strongly as he does for her?

“Yeah?” she replies, sounding lost.

“Did you hear what I said?

She laughs, nervous. Oliver just looks at her, worried. “Oh. Oh!” her eyes widen, “You… you’re not joking?”

“I’m more serious than I have ever been in my entire life right now.”

“You want to marry me?”

“There is nothing that I want more in the world.”

“Oh.”

“Felicity?” he asks again, voice faintly trembling.

“Oliver… we only met each other two and a half months ago!” Oliver struggles to decipher the look in her eyes.

He cups her face between his hands again, “For me, it has been more like six months. Since the first time that I saw you.” He smiles, “Since I first started to fall in love with you.”

“Oliver.” She whispers, love pouring out in that one word.

“Felicity.” He says her name in such a unique way. Like a caress, a prayer.

“Oliver.” She repeats, a laugh in her voice as she cards her fingers through his hair, “We have been dating for less than _three weeks_.”

“Our first date was two months ago.”

“What?” her trademark confused frown appears.

“The night that I cooked you dinner for the first time. I didn’t even know it at the time but I realised recently that I was taking you on our first date. All the way back then.” He laughs. “I’m powerless to stay away from you, Felicity Smoak. You had me dating you before I ever even accepted how I feel about you.”

“How can you be sure? How can you know that, in another two months, you won’t feel differently?”

“Will _you_ feel differently?” he does not wait for an answer, “I don’t know about you, but I certainly have felt that six months – two and a half or two months or even three weeks – whatever it has been, it has been more than enough for me to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will never feel for another the way that I feel about you. I never have felt this way before. Not for anyone. I cannot imagine a life without you anymore, Felicity, I don’t want to be without you. I just want to be with you.”

“I just want to be with you, too.” Tears drip down her face.

“I suppose that the only real question that I am asking, the only one that matters, is can you imagine a life without me?”

“No.” she reaches up to kiss him on the lips again, “I never want to have to be without you again.”

Oliver chokes out a laugh, giddy with joy, “You are the one who lights my way. You’re my home. Felicity Smoak, would you make me the happiest man on the face of the earth?”

“Yes. Yes!” unable to keep the grin off his face, he wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her up and off her feet so that her lips are level with his. He moves in, kissing her with all of the love within him.

He leans back, eyes sparkling up at her, “You’ll marry me?”

“I’ll marry you.”

*************************

There is a lot for them to talk about, a lot for them to plan, but all that Oliver can think about is showing his girl – _his fiancée_ – just how much he adores her. She is already in his arms, but he needs her closer. He removes one hand from her waist, keeping her pressed to him with just the other one, and hooks the free hand under her thigh, pulling it up and over his hip. Picking up on his line of thoughts, she lifts the other leg, allowing him to move both of his hands under her ass as she takes some of her own weight and the fear of dropping her lessens.

He walks them both back towards their bedroom and they see in September in the best way possible.

*************************

On September the first twenty-ten, Oliver gets to wake up next to his fiancée for the first time. It is remarkable. Before the island, there had been a point in his life when he had no doubt that he would one day wake up engaged to Laurel, working for his father and absolutely miserable. He had never been able to conceive of the idea that an engagement would fill him with happiness, that it would be with a woman of his choosing. A woman who he can not only imagine a marriage with but also a life. Children. He is getting ahead of himself again. He may have convinced her to marry him after less than two months but even he knows that they should wait a _little_ longer before introducing kids into the mix. He wants to go there with her one day, but he also wants to have her to himself for a little longer first.

Felicity stirs to life in his arms, blinking up at him just as she had every morning for that perfect week that they had together before she was taken. Something slots into place in his heart, like a piece of him that has been restless for his entire life is settling down, a piece of a puzzle finding its spot. This. This is what he wants for the rest of his life.

“Good morning, fiancé.” She greets him, pressing a kiss to his chest.

“Good morning, fiancée.” He reciprocates, his lips against the crown of her head. Moving back and looking down at her as she looks up, he cannot stop smiling. He pecks her lips and then asks “When do you want to get married?”

“Oliver!” she exclaims, “We literally got engaged a few hours ago!”

“Yeah. I’ve waited more than long enough to marry you. It’s already been _hours_.” He whines, playful.

She giggles, “Oliver, we don’t even know if we _can_ get married yet. If your family has already had a death _in absentia_ declared for you then you can’t legally do _anything_, let alone marry someone. And they still think that you’re dead! How are we going to get around that? You’ll have to tell them and then there will be all this legal stuff and then I’ll have to meet them and then what if they don’t like me? What if they don’t approve and then you’ll not be able to marry me and-”

“Woah! Woah, Felicity. Honey, calm down. Calm down. Firstly, there is no way that anyone could not love you. It’s not possible. Thea will absolutely adore you. My mother might be a little difficult but as soon as she gets to know you, I know that she will welcome you with open arms. And Tommy… well. Tommy would probably hit on you but after that he’d think you’re as amazing as I do. Secondly, I don’t need anybody’s approval to marry you except yours. Nothing else in the world could stop me.”

He takes a breath, then continues, “Thirdly, I… I’m not ready to see my family again yet. I’m not ready to return like that.”

“What do you mean?”

His eyes glaze over, some memory haunting him, “Felicity, there is a reason that I didn’t go home. The things I have done… the things that I am still doing… I feel guilty enough for dragging you into my life, into the danger created by my actions. I know you well enough now to realise that you would never allow me to get away with pushing you away again, but I can still keep my family safe and I want to do that.”

“Oliver, you know that you have nothing to be ashamed of, that your return would only make the people who love you happy, right?” Her thumb strokes over his cheek.

“I know. But… I’m not ready, Felicity. I just want this, what we have, for a little longer. As much as I want to see them again, as much as I want to introduce you to them, as much as _I_ want to meet _your_ mother, I love our life. I love being able to be with you without my family or the press or the public getting involved. One day, I will be ready and I can’t wait for that day, but right now I’m not. All I want is to be married to you.”

“Okay.” She acquiesces, kissing him, “Okay. But you can’t hide forever, Oliver. One day soon, you will have to go home and if you’re already legally dead and you really want to be married to me soon, then it will have to be sooner rather than later.”

“I promise. One day. And when that happens, I will give you a proper wedding with my family and your mother and all of our friends. We’ll get dressed up and there will be a cake and photos and anything else that you want, but for now I just want you to be my wife as soon as possible.”

“As soon as possible?” she asks.

He nuzzles her nose with his, “As soon as possible.”

“Well,” she says, “We’d better get right on that then.”

*************************

As much as they want to prioritise the legalities and nuances of their impending nuptials, Felicity’s first priority is catching up on everything that she missed during her imprisonment and then making a plan for how to deal with Buchinsky.

It turns out that, on her third consecutive day of missed work, Walter Steele had become concerned, especially as she had not so much as opened any of her messages inquiring as to her whereabouts. As a result, he had contacted the police and officers had been sent to her house in order to investigate. Once there, they had found evidence of a break in and the remnants of her computer system that Oliver had left waiting for her return. A missing person’s case had been opened and one Detective Lance assigned to look for her. Oliver groans at that particular bit of information, lamenting that in a city of half a million they would have to end up with the one detective he most wants to avoid.

They agree that it is in their best interests to maintain the façade for as long as possible. If she is presumed missing, then she is free to pursue Buchinsky without facing significant repercussions at work. Besides, it is far too dangerous for her to be back at home or at work, or anywhere out in the open, for as long as Buchinsky is still at large. Oliver seems far too pleased at the thought of having her to himself for the foreseeable future.

It is also agreed that they will take the next few days to rest and regroup following their stressful week. They can use the time to find a lead on Buchinsky and to finally look into their options for marriage. Then, they plan to let loose their full wrath on the scum who is trying to make their lives a living hell. They plan to end it, once and for all.

Felicity’s first point of call is to look into California’s laws on death _in absentia_ and to check whether or not Oliver is legally dead yet. She learns that there is a five year buffer required before death _in absentia_ can be filed and her heart swells with hope until she then comes across the knowledge that earlier petitions can be made in cases where there is evidence that absentee’s body could not be recovered. And that the Queens have filed for such an exception to be made in the case of Oliver and Robert.

Oliver’s heart falls at the news. But Felicity is not one to give up, so she continues to check into it and sees that, whilst a death _in absentia_ case has been made for Oliver, it has not yet been filed. It would seem that Moira and Thea held out hope for almost two years that the other half of their family would return to them, not making the case until two-thousand and nine. And in the year since they hired a lawyer to sort it out for them, there have been several delays caused by many things. Including the fact that it has not been anywhere near five years since the Queen men’s disappearance and therefore a significant amount of evidence has been required to prove beyond shadow of a doubt that neither of them could have survived.

The fact that there is so much money and property under Robert’s name and a lot of people hoping for a mention in the Queen patriarch’s will has also slowed the proceedings. There have been many disputes regarding certain facets of the will. And as the lawyer has decided to focus on one Queen at a time, whilst Robert is already legally dead, the amount of time that it took to sort out his will means that Oliver is still legally alive. For exactly six more days. Because he is scheduled to be proclaimed dead on the seventh. Oliver takes the news surprisingly well.

“We’ll just have to get married… now! So that we are legally married before I am legally dead and then whenever I decide to see my family again, and I get resurrected, I will still be married to you.”

“You want to get married this week?”

“I want to get married today, but I’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with. Even if that means that we have to wait until after I get resurrected.”

“We… we could get married right now.” She looks hopeful.

“Now?” his excitement is palpable.

“It would be legally iffy because we don’t have an officiant or anything, but that’s going to be true unless we go to your family first and you’re right, I don’t really want to wait for that either. But I could, if you want, make a digital marriage license and have us digitally signed on it. And then I could make it all official and quietly add it to the city’s records so that we can be married without anyone else knowing. For right now.” She inhales sharply, refilling her lungs as she looks up at him with no small amount of trepidation.

The corners of Oliver’s mouth twitch up, spreading into a fully blown grin, “Felicity Megan Smoak, will you marry me? Right here. Right now. Be my wife.”

“Yes! Oliver, yes. I want to marry you. No! Wait. I need to… I need to write my vows first. We can’t… it needs to be perfect and I need to practise and-”

“Felicity, you could come up with the perfect vows whilst half drunk and put on the spot. Whatever you say will be exactly right. If you really feel the need to take some time and write something then you can have it, but I would rather be married to you right now with improvised vows straight from the heart than to wait for something overly processed and practised. You know that I love your babbles. My favourite things that you say you have said in a babble, so if you want to practise then you can but you should also know that nothing would make me happier than a babbled vow.”

*************************

It does not take long for Felicity to draw up their wedding certificate and print it out. With the simple sheet of paper between them, they link hands in their candlelit living room and Oliver begins to speak, “Felicity Megan Smoak, before I met you, I had a plan. I had a way that I was going to be. But then you walked into my life – or into my mother’s office, at least – and you changed everything.” His eyes have welled up, “I was in the darkness. More than I have ever been in my entire life and then that one glimpse of you gave me enough light to find my way through that darkest time in my life and to make it home. To come back to the girl who had me hooked with just a few babbled words. And when I came flying – and fighting – right into your life with my soul darker than ever before, it was your kindness, your generosity, your compassion, your intelligence, your wit, your trust and your sheer stubbornness that brought me into the light. You let me know that I deserve it, _you_ were that light.

“Every single day, I question what it is that made me lucky enough to have you in my life, what could possibly make me deserve you and your trust and every single day, I come to the same conclusions: that I don’t.” Felicity looks like she wants to protest but Oliver keeps going, “But every day, you knock back my doubts and you remind me that no matter what consequences there are for having you in my life, the way that you make me feel is the very best part of it and if you feel even a fraction of that, then it’s all worth it.

“I promise to always come back to you. I promise to do everything in my power to keep you safe. I promise to always be honest and to never pull away from you again. I promise to let you decide whether I’m too dangerous for you to be around or not. I promise to do everything that I can to earn your trust for the rest of my life. I promise to love you. With every cell in my body, with every breath that I take, with everything that I am and every moment of life that I have left, I promise to love you with all of it. Through good times and bad, difficult and easy, I will love you. Because I want to be your husband through it all. I do.”

Both of them are crying by the time Felicity begins to speak, “I love you so much. I trust you with everything in me, knowing you has changed my life. You’ve opened up my heart in a way that I didn’t even know was possible. From the moment that you walked into my life, everything changed.” Their bodies have drawn closer together, needing the intimacy in their vulnerable moment as Felicity pours her heart out to Oliver and he sobs silently at her words, “You have encouraged me to be myself again, to not let my fears govern the way that I live my life. You have helped me find a way to help people in the way that I have always dreamt of. None of that would have been possible without your love guiding me, my love for you driving me to be what I am meant to be. To being the very best version of myself. Our love, it gives my life meaning, it gives my life purpose and it brings me more joy than I ever thought I would be capable of feeling.

“Oliver Jonas Queen, I love you. I love you so much that it hurts to think about sometimes because it’s all happened so quickly. If I feel this way about you right now, how will I feel in another month? In a year? How will I feel on our tenth anniversary? There is this little voice inside my head that tells me that I won’t feel this way because love never lasts and everybody leaves but the way that you are with me, the unconditional affections that you give to me, it lets me push back that voice and gives me hope that ten years from today, we will be celebrating our tenth anniversary together. More in love than ever before.

“I promise to trust in you and to fight back those fears and insecurities that my father instilled in me by remembering that you are not him. I promise to support you in your decisions and to be the light that guides you safely home from the darkness of this city. I promise to let you know when you’re being stubborn and unreasonable and when you’re infuriating me and to listen if you say the same to me so that we can work through those issues together, as a couple rather than doing it alone. I promise to love you, no matter what you do, no matter what mistakes you make or I make and no matter what the future holds for us, I promise to face it all by your side. Because for every part of you that wants to be my husband, there is a part of me that wants to be your wife and I am honoured to be the one that you have chosen to take that title. I want to marry you. I do.”

“Together.” He repeats as her arms wrap around his neck, pulling him down so that they can seal their vows with a kiss.

The Smoak Queens.

*************************

The both of them lean over, signing their printed marriage license one after another. As Felicity scans the signed certificate into her computer, Oliver promises to get her a perfect ring, lamenting the fact that he did not do so prior to his proposal, or at least their marriage. She reminds him that he was the one who convinced her to get married so fast, but that she does not need a ring anyway so it does not matter. He still wants to get her one.

When everything is scanned in and ready, Felicity hesitates, her finger over the key that will send off their marriage license and have it filed. The key that will bind them for the rest of their lives. She feels Oliver move so that he is directly behind her and looks up at his face just in time for his hand to make contact with her arm. It runs down the length between her elbow and her wrist, stopping when his hand covers hers, his fingers splayed out over her own. On his knees, he moves in for a kiss, and in the moment that their lips make contact, this index finger presses down on her own, pushing in the key.

They are married.

*************************

Once their license is filed, Oliver does not hesitate to sweep Felicity off her feet.

“Oliver!” she shrieks, “What are you doing?”

He is walking towards their bedroom, a determination in his stride that Felicity has never seen before, “Carrying you across the threshold.” He says, like it is the most obvious answer ever. “Wife.” He adds, pushing open the door.

She gasps dramatically, “Why, what are your intentions with me, husband?” she teases.

His eyes become deep ocean waters, the blue molten as he smoulders at her, “They’re extremely _dis_honourable, wife.” In that moment, he drops her onto their new bed.

Once he has her atop their bed, he wastes no time in crawling over her and fusing their lips together. “We’re _married_.” He murmurs between kisses, “You’re my _wife_.”

“My husband.” She gasps back, breathless. “I love you so much, Oliver Jonas Queen.” Her hands scrabble down his back, grasping at the hem of his shirt and yanking it up. In her eagerness, she manages to tangle both her arms and his inside it. The neckline is acting as a gag on Oliver. They pause, looking at one another.

Felicity’s hair is mussed, her cheeks flushed and one of her hands has somehow managed to get tangled inside the arm hole of his shirt. A feat even more impressive considering that his arm is still in it too and on a normal day, the fabric is pretty strained. Her other hand is still tugging at his top, trying futilely to free the two of them.

Oliver’s other arm has managed to half remove itself from the shirt, but his elbow seems to have come out first and left his bicep and forearm are pinned together in the fabric. His lower torso is completely exposed but his upper back is still covered, which is a miraculous contrast to his completely free chest, and the front half of his shirt is in his mouth. After a moment of staring at her, Oliver dissolves into giggles, encouraging her to laugh along with him.

“I’m sorry.” She giggles, still trying to find a way to get them out.

“Hang on,” he shifts his body weight to his knees so that the pressure is removed from his arms, “I’ve got this.” And then he does the single sexiest thing that Felicity has ever had the pleasure of witnessing. He tenses all of the muscles in his upper body, making them positively bulge and manages to hook one of his hands into the bunched fabric at his mouth, giving it a good tug. And he tears the shirt right off of the two of them.

“_Frack_. That was so hot.” Felicity moans.

“Yeah?” Oliver says, “I love it when you don’t say proper swear words.” He lays back on top of her, pressing his hips into hers, “It’s so cute. You’re so sexy.”

Rolling up to meet him, she groans “I’ll show you cute.” And then she is rolling them over, settling herself in his lap and pinning his arms over his head. “Stay.” She commands. He is so turned on. She whips her own shirt off with far more finesse than she had Oliver’s and then rises to stand over him, one foot on each side of his hips and she shimmies out of her jeans.

Her underwear is all white.

All of it. White and lacy. Of course it is. Oliver lets out a curse, “White?” he asks.

“I was celebrating our engagement.” She says defensively.

“Felicity.” His groan sounds pain, “Get back down here.” She kneels back over his body, sliding up so that she can kiss him again and letting him move his hands from where she left them. Immediately he reaches for her bra, unhooking it and shoving it into his pocket. “Take off my pants.” He orders, wanting to have as much of his skin on hers as possible. She lifts her hips so that she can access his belt, undoing the buckle and pushing them off his hips.

“Huh.” She pauses, “You’re wearing white too.” He smirks up at her as she fully removes his trousers.

“I was celebrating our engagement.” He repeats, before pulling her back up his body and proceeding to thoroughly consummate their marriage. All night long.

On the first of September, twenty-ten, Oliver gets to fall asleep with his wife in his arms for the first time.

*************************

The next few days pass in a blur of attempted hackings that are interrupted by… _honeymoon activities_. Eventually, Felicity has to draw a line and force the two of them to get back to chasing down Buchinsky. The longer that they waste, the worse things get. Buchinsky will have more of a chance to escape, Detective Lance will waste more time looking for a woman who is not actually missing, more people will be in danger. Felicity will be further behind with work when she gets back.

She forces Oliver out of their safe house, insisting that she needs to get work done and that Starling City needs to see that the Vigilante is still out there, protecting them. He takes some time to simply deal with people on the street, letting himself get back into the swing of things and trying to pick up chatter that could lead him to Buchinsky. Meanwhile, Felicity catches back up on what is happening with her missing person’s case as she also resets some searches and works to set up new ways to find their enemy using her new system. Oliver had, like the fantastic husband that he is, ensured that she would have everything that she will need to work from their safe house.

The one good thing about giving Lance a few days to pursue leads on her is that he is starting to catch wind of Buchinsky’s operations. Whilst it does pose some issues in that it will put him at risk and it will also mean that he will come into contact with Oliver more, it also means that fully dismantling Buchinsky’s organisation and ensuring that everyone involved gets prosecuted will be much easier once Oliver takes out Buchinsky himself.

And Oliver will take Buchinsky out. Permanently. Felicity knows that there is no point in trying to talk him out of it. She saw it in his eyes the day that he came for her, as he was beating her jailor half to death. Maybe all the way. The minute that Buchinsky decided to go after her, he signed his death warrant. Taking her, hurting her, letting somebody sexually threaten her, any one of those things would be enough to send Oliver over the edge. All three of them… there is no return.

Luck, for once, is on their side. Felicity is unsure whether it is her escape, Oliver’s attack, Lance’s investigation or a combination of all three but something has made Buchinsky sloppy. Where before he had been calculated, careful and impossible to track, his desperation has led to him making mistakes. Oliver has been able to find several minor leads from the people who have met the business end of his arrows, and those leads have been followed by Felicity straight to the source.

Buchinsky is scrambling. Oliver had not been wrong when he had pointed out that his attacks have depleted Buchinsky’s power and resources, he had not been wrong to assume that his skills would be needed for Buchinsky to make a speedy recovery and he had definitely not been wrong to know that, in his most recent mission, his decimation of the part of Buchinsky’s forces based in the compound where Felicity was held would send the man running. He is desperate. Clinging on to the last shreds of power left to him in the hopes that he can rebuild his empire.

And that means that he is putting out word to every single person he has a contact with to try and garner support. To make a sale. Unfortunately for him, not everybody he has sent a message out to is entirely on his side. Many of them would rather see him gone, or at least are smart enough to know not to get involved with the Vigilante’s current primary target. And therefore, Oliver is able to find out exactly who is willing to get into business with Buchinsky, and exactly who is already working for him. Exactly who knows where he is.

Once they have that information, it is very easy for Felicity to track the man down and to make a plan of attack. One that Oliver is more than ready to follow, to take their enemy down.

To end this, once and for all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in like May or June last summer, I was sat around thinking about pre-island relationship fics and what I do/don't like about them. And then my brain said to me 'But what if they met DURING Oliver's years away? How would that change things up?' and then it was like 'And what if they got MARRIED?' and that's how Under Different Circumstances was born.
> 
> This chapter is kind of the culmination of that for me, coming back to the idea that started it all. It may be quick, it may be soon and it may be a little OOC (if you're considering Oliver's self-sacrificing nature, not if you're considering his utter powerlessness around Felicity and the fact that he REALLY wants to marry her) but it's the idea that sparked my imagination, so it's what I've gone with.


	15. Nowhere to run from all of this havoc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lester Buchinsky, you have FAILED THIS CITY!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The penultimate chapter! My heart hurts. This is the biggest one yet and SO MUCH happens!
> 
> This chapter also brings my AO3 total word count to over 100,000. That's a big deal for me considering that this time last year I could not even find the motivation to consider writing, let alone to get my laptop out and pick up the proverbial pen. So, thank you for reading some of my 100,000 words.
> 
> Enjoy <3

**Chapter XV – Nowhere to run from all of this havoc**

Bodies line the hallway, bloody and beaten. None of them moving bar one. And he is moving at a break-neck pace. His bow is nocked, his eyes alert, his wife is in his ear telling him, “There’s another squad coming. Seven heat signatures, they’re armed.” His heart is pounding, his breath coming out in rasps, he probably has cracked ribs, and there is blood dripping down across his eyes. Whether it is his own or somebody else’s, it is impossible to tell.

He thunders around corners, fury a tangible force pouring from him, itching to get his hands around Lester Buchinsky’s throat. His new targets appear before him, each one brandishing a gun like that will somehow stop him in his crusade. His arms are practically blurred as he jumps forwards, arrows spraying out before him and taking out their weapons. His leap brings him into the crowd, bowling over a couple of his targets with the force of his body. He slides back, blocking attacks from every side as he slashes with his bow, snapping back the heads of those he hits. He grabs a fletchette, swiping an arc with it and opening up the stomachs of three of his foes.

Of the remaining four, two are still dazed from the blows to their heads but the other two are mounting their attack on him. It matters little, he throws the fletchette into one of their eyes, killing him instantly, and then deflects the hits of the second man, getting close enough to wrap his arm around his neck and – _snap_.

“Oliver, there is another squad incoming.” Felicity’s panicked voice rings through the comm. Their feet thundering on the ground is so loud that he hears them before he sees them, but there are still two targets for him to deal with before he turns his attention to the next group. He kicks out, sending one flying back into a wall with the force of it, his head making first contact. It knocks the guy out cold. The next one, he flips over, sending him crashing down onto his own back where the air gushes from his lungs, leaving him choking. Oliver shoots at him, finishing the job and as he goes to shoot the unconscious man slumped on the floor, something cracks against his back, making him fall to his knees.

On the floor, he quickly becomes surrounded by the reinforcements, their fists, knees and feet all crushing into him, disorienting him. His cracked ribs break, he curls in on himself, panic raising up within him as he sees no escape.

*************************

Walter has been through a lot during his time at Queen consolidated. In his early years, in his time as CFO and most recently during his time as CEO. But nothing, not one event or disaster or difficulty has felt quite so worrying nor so personal as the mysterious disappearance of Felicity Smoak. After more than a year with the company, she has never missed a day of work, even staying late for most of her time with them. But in the last few months, she has missed several days in a row on several different occasions and has appeared more exhausted after each day off. Even on those occasions, however, she has called in sick or taken holiday time up.

This is the first time that she has ever just… not shown up. It is the first time that she has been missing for days on end with no explanation and the evidence of violence in her home has Walter quite on edge. Felicity Smoak has no next of kin listed in her company records, though Walter knows that she has a mother out there somewhere from his conversations with her. Her mother is not her emergency contact either, that is just a number that leads to the company’s human resources department. Walter plans on talking to her and ensuring that she changes that if – _when_ – she is found.

He does not know why her mother has not been listed, why she has not been allowed to know when something happens to her daughter, but he does know that if it were him, if he were Felicity’s father, nothing could stop him from wanting to be involved. As it is, he is just her boss and he fears for her enough that it has kept him awake every night for the last two weeks, waiting by his phone for news. Detective Lance has been directly in contact with Walter, who has assumed responsibility as Felicity’s emergency contact for the time being, and he has become decreasingly optimistic as time has passed. Walter does not want to give up hope, but he is well aware that it has been almost two weeks and there is still no sign of her.

He sighs, struggling to focus on the paperwork in front of him – another thing that is very out of character – but he knows that he has to. One missing employee, regardless of whether she is the most valuable employee in the company or not, cannot be valued as a higher priority than the thousands of other employees for whom Walter is responsible. He has done what he can for Felicity, the rest is in Lance’s hands now.

Just as he finally feels that he is beginning to make some progress, his phone rings. It is the detective.

“Detective Lance? Has there been a development?” He asks, phone pressed to his ear. His heart is pounding far more than he would have expected. He realises that he cares a great deal for Felicity. There is just something about the girl, something that makes him feel protective and fatherly in a way similar to how he is also beginning to feel about Thea as his relationship with Moira blossoms.

“Mister Steele.” The detective’s voice sounds heavy, burdened, Walter’s heart clenches, it does not sound like good news, “Something big has come to light. We’re going to need you to come down to the station.” In that same moment, Walter gets an alert on his phone. It is a news article. The Vigilante has been in contact with the police.

*************************

Their attack on Buchinsky’s compound is well thought out. It is his last stronghold, all of his other hiding spots having already been found and decimated by Oliver. This is the only place that he has left to go. It is the only place where he feels that he could be safe. The upside to this is that Buchinsky is definitely inside the compound. The downside is that every single one of his remaining guards is also in there, and there are enough of them that Felicity’s infrared imaging is struggling to pick out any of them individually, the entrance showing up as just a mass of bright red.

Oliver has faced worse odds.

The guards are not just there to protect their boss. They are also guarding cells filled with the last of Buchinsky’s ‘stock’. His last enslaved girls to sell. Oliver plans on sending every single one of those girls home by the end of the night.

Felicity is stationed just outside. She is in a rental van that they managed to get their hands on, all of the information on Buchinsky and the men under his employ gathered into one spot. All of the details of the compound available on her laptop. All of the evidence and resources that they need to put an end to the operation readily available to her. And nine-one-one is pulled up and ready on her phone.

Oliver slips inside fairly easily at first, managing to sneak past the veritable army at the actual entrance by creating one of his own. The roof. Unfortunately for him, doing so sets off all manner of alarms, the noise caused by his explosive entrance alerting people to his presence and then begins the most intense fight of his life. Many people die, he is not one of them.

He easily takes the lives more than a dozen men without thought, letting his wife’s murmured words encourage him to continue on, to catch their target. Until a group gets the better of him, sneaking up behind him faster than he can anticipate whilst he is busy dispatching the squad before them. And then there is only panic.

Getting into Buchinsky’s facility was easy. Routine, even. But getting through his men, getting past the voice in his head that has reverted back to the boy who was tortured by Billy Wintergreen, who was kept in a cage by Fyers, who was beaten by a man he once called his brother, it was much harder. Especially as the ability to breathe is taken away from him by the people beating him into the ground.

He cannot think, he cannot process what his senses are telling him. All that is going through his mind is _pain _and_ trapped _and_ threats_. And then, there is _her_.

“Oliver? Oliver can you hear me? Oliver, you have to get up. You have to fight. For us, for our future. For the girls that he has taken, for the people whose lives have been ruined by him. You have to stop him, Oliver.” Her voice is like ice water pouring through his brain, bringing him back to himself and letting him focus. “Oliver. You promised not to leave me.” The fear in her voice is what finally snaps him back to attention, letting him ignore the panic as the panic of failing his mission, of _failing her_, is stronger than any other fear that he could have. It drives him on, letting him spot the gap in their offence, letting him roll through it, letting him get behind his enemies and snap two of their necks at once, brutality becoming him.

The rest fall just as swiftly.

*************************

Exhausted and limping, certain that he has a good deal of broken bones and hoping that there are no punctures, he finds his way into Buchinsky’s office. Where the man himself sits behind a desk. He pushes back the flashback, the horrific images of Felicity in those videos, beaten and bruised and does not let himself remember that the last time he and Lester were in these positions, he almost lost his wife for good. He almost lost his wife before he could ever make her his wife. Instead, he simply raises his bow and, ignoring the way that Buchinsky is starting to drone on, he growls out “Lester Buchinsky. You have _FAILED THIS CITY_.” One last time.

His fingers draw away from the string, the recoil begins to blow past his hand and then something hits him. He is knocked over just as the arrow flies, which changes its course, and he vaguely hears a cry of pain come from Buchinsky but the sound is drowned out by the adrenaline rushing through his body.

The new threat is a woman, a shock for many reasons, including the fact that she is the first woman whom he has found fighting for the misogynistic pig he just shot. It changes nothing for Oliver, she just became his enemy. She is tall for a woman and built, but still considerably smaller than Oliver. In spite of her larger than average frame, she is fast. She darts around Oliver, jabbing at him with strong hits in an attempt to confuse him. Unlike him, she is not exhausted, she has not been fighting. Ordinarily, he would be able to match her speed but his limbs are heavy and he is struggling to keep up. She pulls a knife and slashes at him, catching in a few places and tearing open his skin, weakening him further.

But she is sloppy in her movements, and it is her sloppiness that lets him win. As he is merely deflecting her blows and not mounting any attack of his own, he notices that her knees are turned in, weaker. She is fast but her skill level could do with some improvement. A fact that he proves when he breaks her knee in and, as she crumples to the ground, puts an arrow directly into her.

Buchinsky is laughing, raving on about how his operation will survive long after his death, how Oliver will die before he hits thirty, how Felicity will soon be in the hands of somebody as despicable as he is and Oliver can do nothing about it.

“What did you think, Oliver? That killing me would let you win? My operation extends far beyond that!” Oliver does not care. He does not care for Buchinsky’s delusions of grandeur, he does not care for Buchinsky’s words and he does not care when Buchinsky begins ranting about Oliver’s activities as the Vigilante. He just wants it over.

“Are you going to tell me that I _failed this city_ again?” Buchinsky mocks. Oliver does not react, but Buchinsky forces him to take notice, “If you kill me, the entire city will learn exactly what you have spent your last few years doing. They’ll learn who the vigilante is and they’ll know about your little _whore_.”

“Don’t you talk about her like that!” Oliver roars, reanimated, “Don’t even _think_ about her.”

“I’m not saying anything that the rest of the world won’t be soon enough. I’ve made sure of it. If anything happens to me. If I die or if I go to prison or _anything_, I’ve got a program set up to release all the information that I have on you to every media group in Starling city.”

Oliver freezes, “Felicity?” he murmurs.

“He’s telling the truth. Oliver, you can’t let him get away. I can fix this but we can’t risk him hurting more people.” He does not know what to do. He agrees with Felicity, he is unable to fathom letting Buchinsky go. Again. Being exposed himself will be bad but he can deal with it. Letting Felicity be dragged down with him, that he cannot comprehend. “Oliver! Don’t you dare even think about letting him go!” she yells at him.

Tired, Oliver struggles to reason through his options, he cannot make a decision, he does not know what to do. “That’s right, back away _Vigilante_.” Buchinsky spits, “Run back to your little _bitch_ and keep hiding away from the world.” Oliver’s heart hardens, he thinks about that week without her, not knowing whether she was okay. He thinks about everything that Buchinsky has done and he remembers just how skilled his wife is. Just how talented she is, how complete her control over all things internet is. His only response to Lester Buchinsky’s threat is to put an arrow into his skull.

Felicity can easily stop their identities from being revealed but what she could not change was the fact that Buchinsky knew his identity. Buchinsky knew his home address. Buchinsky knew about _Felicity_. Nobody can know Oliver’s secrets.

*************************

Walking back to the entrance there are far less bodies in the hall than there would be on the journey to the roof. There are still more than he would ever want Felicity to see. But he has no choice. He meets her at the door, pushing it open for her.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing that she says, her fingertips grazing over the cuts, bruises and scrapes marring his hood-covered face.

“I’m fine.” He grunts, leaning into the palm of her hand.

“It’s over?”

“It’s over.” He assures her, “You’re safe.”

“I’ve got work to do.” She corrects him, eliciting a smile. He grabs her hand, leading her down the hall but she immediately notices his limp, “Oliver! You said you were fine!”

“I am. It’s just a few scrapes.” He insists.

“No. You’re limping.” He goes to interrupt but she does not let him, “No! Don’t try to convince me that you’re fine when you’re clearly in pain. Tell the truth. Is anything broken?” His pause gives him away, “What’s broken?”

“Ribs.” He admits, reluctant. “Might have a fractured wrist too. And maybe a kneecap.”

“Oliver.” Sympathetic, soft, “You need to rest.”

“I’ll rest when we get home.” He promises, pulling at her arm to get her to keep moving. She needs to get to a computer and stop any information on the two of them from getting out as soon as possible.

She sighs, exasperated, and moves their hands so that his arm is slung over her shoulders, taking some of his weight. She knows that he will not leave her, not whilst there is any chance of her being in danger, even though she has confirmed that the place is clear, but she can at least help him along until he gets back to their townhouse and he can get patched up.

*************************

Buchinsky’s system is embarrassingly easy to hack into. It is like he thought that no firewalls would be needed for the computers inside his compound. Like he assumed that it would be so secure physically that it would not need to be secured digitally. He was wrong. Not that Felicity is going to complain, it makes her job easier and means that she can send Oliver home just that much faster so that he can rest and heal up. She scours through all of the data, saving information on shipments, payments and every little dealing that there has been on a decrypted USB. The evidence on the two of them is fairly conclusive, but she has no problem in wiping it all from Buchinsky’s system, leaving nothing there to be sent to the media. The benefit to his thorough evidence collection is that he also holds a record of every member of his operation who is privy to the knowledge of their identities and she is able to find that every single one of them is dead. She then wipes any evidence of her and Oliver ever having been in the building away too.

Her husband is half asleep by the time that she is done, the only thing keeping him alert is his need to protect her but there is still work to be completed so he drags himself back up. Together, they walk down to the basement where the sounds of distressed women ring through the air.

“I don’t want to leave you.” Oliver says as he spins her around and cups her face between his hands.

“You’re not leaving me. You’re just making sure that our story is consistent.”

“It feels like leaving you in danger.” He whines.

“I’m safe. You made sure of that. It’s just a little time apart.” She reassures him.

“I love you so much.”

“I love you so much too.” He kisses her, tenderness in every second of their stolen moment.

“Promise me that the first thing you do will be to patch yourself up?” she asks after.

“Only if you promise to call me the first chance that you get.”

“I promise.”

“I’ll see you soon.” And with one last peck, he walks away, only one task left to do before he can go back to their rented van that is filled with the few belongings that had been in their safe house. And then he can go home.

*************************

Felicity steels herself, checking over her clothes to make sure that they are sufficiently dirty, believably worn out. The garments that she is wearing are the same ones from her days in captivity, still unwashed. She ensures that there is no evidence left to suggest that she has spent the last two weeks doing anything other than sit in a dirty prison waiting to be sold. And then, when she hears the sirens, she unlocks the cell doors, letting the other prisoners out.

*************************

Quentin Lance is the least drunk that he has been in months. It could be a coincidence, it could be his daughter’s decision to come back to Starling City for work or it could be the fact that the girl whose disappearance he is investigating looks a little like Sara, but something has him motivated to get things done rather than just sit around on his ass all day drowning his pain in alcohol.

He has spent two weeks looking into her disappearance – Felicity Smoak’s – and everything that he is uncovering is only making him more concerned. How has a human trafficking ring managed to go undercover and flourish so much without anyone in the SCPD noticing? How have they been able to get away with it? And who was behind it? Quentin is beginning to suspect that there are some people in very high places involved for it to have been so large an organisation and still have the only person who knew about it until now be the Vigilante.

And the Vigilante’s fingerprint is all over the case. From the low level street thugs that he has been putting away recently to the highbrow targets nobody could get evidence on (until he dumped it and them into their laps) they all have some connection to this trafficking ring. He has even freed multiple groups of women who had been abducted and were set to be sold. The Vigilante seems to know more about what is going on in this city than the people trained to protect it do. Though that is not so surprising, considering the SCPD’s penchant for ignoring the goings on in the Glades.

It is in the early hours of the morning, after a long night clocking in work, as Quentin finally readies himself for sleep that the call comes in. There has been another Vigilante attack, an entire building of evidence has been found. And the Felicity Smoak case, which is quickly becoming a human trafficking case, is involved. Adrenaline hits, and Quentin is on his way before even he registers that he is moving.

*************************

Red and blue lights flash all around the building. Uniformed officers, the first responders, have put up the tape and are standing guard as a swarm of paramedics and higher ranking members of the SCPD like Lance himself arrive on the scene.

He can hear calls for forensics to come in, lots of people are mentioning a veritable bloodbath and there, just outside the doors, is a group of barely dressed, shivering girls. A blonde is darting around the group, seemingly offering comfort and keeping them calm and together as they await medical attention. Quentin recognises her immediately, he has been staring at her image for days on end now, it is Felicity Smoak. He makes his way over.

“Miss Smoak?” he asks, watching her turn from the young – very young, probably only fourteen – girl she is attending to.

“That’s me…?” she waits for him to respond.

“I’m Detective Quentin Lance. Your boss, Walter Steele, called the SCPD two weeks ago, on the twenty-fifth of August when you did not show up to work for the third day running. Some officers were sent to investigate and when they found evidence of a home invasion, a missing persons case was opened and I took the lead.”

“Thank you, Detective Lance. I appreciate you coming here so early.” She is so calm.

“Would you mind letting me know what has happened today and over the last few weeks. In your own words?” he asks.

“Of course, but…” he hesitates, biting her lip, her eyes shifting around as she leans in and, in a whisper, tells him, “_He’s_ still here, Detective.”

“Who?” he reaches for his gun, suddenly alert for a potential threat.

“_Him_.” She mimes pulling a hood up, but it is not until she begins to fake shooting an arrow from a bow that he catches on. One had reaches forwards to grab hers and stop her miming as the other fully draws his gun in response.

“Where?” he grunts. He looks in the direction that her finger is pointing, not able to see anything down the dark alley, but then there is a glint, like light reflecting from metal and he knows.

He advances to the alley, leaving the girls with an order, “Stay here.” As soon as he can see the dark visage of the Vigilante, he is pointing his gun at the man’s face.

“You don’t want to shoot me.” Comes the deep growl of the Vigilante.

“I’m pretty sure I do. You’re a murderer, a Vigilante and a wanted criminal. Drop the bow and put your hands behind your head.”

“I just freed nineteen girls from a life of sexual slavery.”

“At what cost?”

“The price I paid is mine to bear, and it is worth far less than their lives are.”

“And how many other people are going to suffer because you jumped the gun – or the bow, whatever – and came charging in here instead of letting us get a warrant so that we can catch _everyone_ involved rather than just the few who were here?”

“None.” An object flies towards Quentin, making him flinch back. It clatters to the floor. It is a USB stick. “On that is all the evidence that you’ll need to put _everyone_ involved behind bars. Or, everyone involved who is still living at least. Inside that building is the man who was in charge, Lester Buchinsky. He’s dead but there is still plenty of evidence around him for you to make some solid convictions. He still has… colleagues out there, but I’ll leave them to you.”

Quentin takes a minute, sizing the Vigilante up before leaning down, gun still pointed straight, to pick up the device. Regardless of how distasteful he finds the Vigilante’s methods and ideologies, he hates traffickers far more, and will take anything that he can get to put them away. For a brief second, he has to look down to grab the thing, and when he looks back up, the Vigilante is gone. He whirls around, looking for where the man could have disappeared to, there is no sign of him. He curses and then runs back out, calling for backup and sending officers out to find the Vigilante.

Naturally, nobody finds the man. Quentin is forced to let it go momentarily and move back to Felicity Smoak so that he can listen to her story before going to talk to the other girls. She tells him about being taken from her home in the dead of night the Saturday – or Sunday, she is unsure of the exact timing – before Quentin got her case. The fear in her eyes as she speaks of being held in a room all alone, with only a threatening guard for occasional company sends a pang through his chest. He tries not to think about Sara or Laurel being in that situation. She then tells him that she had been moved a few days ago to this place, where she has been until the Vigilante came and freed them. She tells him that she had heard shouts and the guards running from their positions in front of their doors and then the next thing she had known, the doors had opened and they escaped.

When he questions the other girls, their stories of the night are similar. Curiously, none of them have been held alone in their own cell like Miss Smoak. Quentin wonders what makes her different. Why had she been kept alone? Why had she suffered a home invasion, something very unusual in this sort of case? But otherwise, their stories do add up. And Quentin does not want to be the sort of Detective who tries to place blame on a victim. So, he lets the paramedics take over, and calls Walter Steele as the girls are being transferred to either the station or the hospital, depending on their state.

Walter arrives at the police station promptly, showing far more emotional attachment to Miss Smoak than Quentin would have expected the CEO of a multibillion dollar company to show to a tech girl. She is still comforting the other girls, the ones that the paramedics had cleared to go to the station, but something in him relaxes when he sees Walter go over to her, when he sees that she is being taken care of herself.

He gets back to work. It is going to be a long day.

*************************

The relief that the news that Felicity is safe brings Walter surprises even him. Seeing her completely focused on the young girls with her rather than herself does not. She seems happy to see him, touched that he cares enough to have noticed her absence and she initially rejects his offer of a ride home, but after he insists, she spends a long time thanking him profusely.

As soon as he gets her in the car, he grows serious. “Miss Smoak, are you sure that you’re happy to go home?” he cannot imagine what memories going back there might bring up.

“I’ll be fine, thank you, Mister Steele.” She gives him a reassuring smile, “The people who hurt me are gone now, the Vigilante took care of them.” She seems to have utter confidence in that knowledge.

“Your door was smashed in, Miss Smoak, but your landlord seems to have sorted it out, so it should be safe.” He informs her.

“She is pretty good like that. She lives downstairs, she’s really nice.”

There is a lull in conversation, “Miss Smoak, may I ask why you have no listed next of kin and your emergency contact was the number for the HR department?”

She flushes, “I just don’t really know anyone in the city so I just put in the company.”

“But I know that you have mentioned your mother, don’t you think that she deserves to know if something happens to you?”

She sighs, “I guess. But she panics so easily, I didn’t want her to worry.”

Tentatively, Walter says, “Miss Smoak, if I may, I would like to suggest that you list her as your next of kin. We have been fortunate that you were saved this time, but if anything were to happen again, we need to be able to contact her to let her know.”

She sighs again, “I know. Everything that’s happened the last few weeks has made me really think about it. I promise, I’ll call her later today and I’ll update my details as soon as possible. Thank you for taking responsibility for me this time, I promise that it won’t happen again.”

“I’m happy to have been able to help. As worried as I was, it was nice to know that I would be able to get updates as soon as your case developed.”

*************************

They pull up outside her house at about eight in the morning, it has been a long night for everyone. As Felicity goes to get out, Walter stops her, “Miss Smoak, it might be a good idea for you to take some time off. At least a week or two. And if you want to speak to someone, your company health insurance should cover it.”

“I- I couldn’t take more time, Mister Steele. I’ve already missed so much. I need to-”

“You need to rest and recover. I’m going to inform security not to let you in for the rest of this week and next week. I don’t want to see you in at least that long.” He smiles, “I look forwards to seeing you back, Miss Smoak. It is a relief to see you safe.” And then he shuts the door and leaves her shocked on the pavement.

*************************

She shakes her head, clearing her mind and then looks at her front door, ready to be back in her husband’s arms. He is waiting for her in their living room as she walks in, fresh stitches in his skin and a wrap around his bare chest for his battered ribs, but a big smile is plastered on his face. She runs over, intending to throw herself at him before she remembers that he is injured and she stops herself. Instead, she gently winds her arms around his neck.

“We did it.” She tells him.

He is so beautiful when he smiles, “We did it.” He repeats against her lips before descending to kiss her properly. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

Her fingers weave into his hair, pulling him into her and he reciprocates, pressing them as close together as possible. He is bending down and she remembers that he has at least one broken bone, “You’re hurt.” She manages to get out, “Sit.”

“Sit with me.” She concedes, not expecting him to literally pull her onto his lap as he moves down and continue where they left off.

“Oliver! We can’t. You’re hurt.”

“We can.” He insists, making an excellent case against her neck.

“Oliver.” She moans, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Compromise?” he hums against her chest, where his lips have found themselves.

“What compromise?”

“I don’t do anything to flare up any pain, you stay on top of me and we keep going.” She considers protesting but his hand is slipping beneath her jeans and all thought flies out of her mind.

***************************

They make full use of their time off, using it as a proper honeymoon, albeit at home and not on a tropical island. Oliver goes out and buys her a ring, a gesture that she returns. They just get simple gold bands, not needing anything more to announce their love for one another, but they also get a chain each so that they can wear the rings around their necks. As much as they would love to go out in public and flaunt their marriage, they need to avoid raising questions for the time being and agree that Felicity should keep her ring hidden when she goes to work.

They go on dates, mostly within their home, they talk to one another, Oliver gets to hear her mother’s voice when she calls her to tell her about the abduction. He also pretty much falls in love with Donna when he hears her concern for Felicity and her insistence on coming for a visit. Felicity has to shoot down that idea quickly. Oliver is far more disappointed than Felicity would like, and the knowledge that she will one day have to introduce the two of them makes her shiver in fear.

They also get a chance to talk about their future. Oliver wants them to have another wedding, a proper one that Donna and Thea and Moira and Tommy can attend with them, where he can celebrate his love for his wife in front of everyone that matters to them. He also talks about what their life together will be like. About starting a family of their own. Felicity’s spine stiffens when Oliver mentions kids, she is only twenty-one after all, but when he assures her that there is no pressure, and that he would not want them straight away either, she begins to picture it. Oliver with their baby dwarfed in his huge arms, a miniature him running around with a toy bow and arrow, causing mayhem. A life together. It makes her happy. She knows that he would make a fantastic father, that he would never be like Noah Kuttler, and she _wants_ that life.

She also spends a great deal of time discussing why he is so reluctant to go home now and only speaks of it as an abstract idea for the far future. There are a lot of twisted up feelings, a lot of self-loathing and it takes some time, but once he starts to use a journal to work through it all, he begins to come around to the idea of seeing his family again.

Planning it out is another obstacle that they encounter. Neither of them want to get into the complications that will come if he just shows up at his family’s home one day, wife in tow. Oliver wants to keep being the Vigilante, and feels that the only way to keep his identity and avoid questions about his three years away is to make it seem like he has spent every minute of those years on Lian Yu. But actually organising that is far more complicated than they expect. Short of actually sending him back there and somehow figuring out a way to make someone ‘happen’ upon him, the plan is riddled with flaws.

*************************

Before they know it, a month has passed and it is almost mid-October. Felicity has been back at work for several weeks and they have settled into a routine. Their life together. It is almost peaceful, disregarding their night time Vigilante activities. Though even that has settled down, the two of them simply making their way through some of the easier names on the list as they gather evidence on some of the bigger targets.

Felicity has begun to look into the QC owned warehouse where Oliver was held prisoner. She knows that there is somebody else, somebody powerful and dangerous at the company that she works for who has had some sort of dealing with a human trafficker and possibly others in the city’s criminal underbelly too. It is slow going, there are very few threads to trace. Oliver is also spending much more time simply patrolling the Glades, helping the people who live there in more immediate, though temporary ways than he does when he goes after people on the list. His body count has dropped exponentially.

But their lives cannot be simple, they cannot have peace for long.

It is a normal morning for them. They wake up, they make love and as Felicity starts to get herself ready for work, Oliver goes to make their breakfast, padding through to the kitchen to do so.

Amanda Waller is in their living room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS NOT THE END!!!
> 
> *runs and hides under a rock*


	16. a world without you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amanda. Fracking. Waller.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE!
> 
> Super early update. But... now it's over and I almost wish I'd waited longer :( as you may know, it's the Crisis tonight, so I thought that I'd get in here before all of that.
> 
> Thank you everybody for giving me and UDC a chance. For reading, leaving kudos and sending me some truly lovely comments, I'm so, so grateful. So, yeah, here we go...

**Chapter XVI – a world without you**

Unable to stop himself, Oliver lunges for a knife, knocking the rack to the floor in the process. He knows that threatening Amanda Waller is perhaps one of his stupider plans, but his wife right behind him, getting into a shower, vulnerable. There is no way that he will let Waller hurt her, he will not even let the woman so much as threaten her. There is no telling what Waller would do if she knew just how talented Felicity is behind a keyboard.

Waller does not seem fazed at the sight of Oliver brandishing a knife at her, all that she says is “I’ve noticed that there has been a Vigilante running around Starling City. You’ve certainly chosen an unusual hobby, Mister Queen.”

Still coming to terms with the fact that Amanda Waller is sitting casually in his living room on Felicity’s pink chaise, it takes Oliver longer than usual to formulate a response, which leaves enough time for Felicity to come crashing into his back as she rushes out from their bedroom.

“Oliver!” she says, “What’s going on?” he does not turn to her, his body still angled protectively in front of hers.

“Felicity, this is Amanda Waller.” He warns her.

“Amanda… Waller?” Felicity knows the name, she has heard many a horror story featuring the tall, perfectly put together woman from whom Oliver is protecting her.

“Missus Smoak Queen, it is nice to make your acquaintance.” Amanda does not bother to stand up or shake Felicity’s hand.

“Missus… wait you _know_? Like… you _know_, know?” Felicity puts it together far faster than Oliver does.

“That you’re married? Of course I do. I keep tabs on all of my agents, current and former.”

“Waller. How did you find me?” Oliver is entirely tensed up, on edge in a way that Felicity has never seen him before, clearly seeing a threat and reacting to it.

“I told you, I keep tabs on all of my agents and the world is too small for someone like Oliver Queen to disappear.” She smirks, “Truth be told, I expected to find you in your family’s mansion, not shacking up with a secret wife on the outskirts of the Glades.”

Oliver ignores the dig at his relationship, “I don’t want to be near my family.”

“Because of what you did to Shrieve?” If possible, Oliver tenses up even more. He still has not told Felicity about Shrieve, “I read his autopsy report.” She pulls in a breath, sounding almost impressed, “I knew you had a capacity for the unfathomable but I actually _under_estimated you.”

“Oliver?” Felicity asks, “What’s she talking about?”

“Shrieve… General Shrieve was the man behind the Alpha-Omega virus attack on Hong Kong. I… I tortured him.” Oliver still has his back to her, “I tortured him for hours, just because I was angry. I called it justice, but it wasn’t.” he finally turns his head, “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”

“He released the Alpha-Omega?” That, Felicity does know all about. Oliver nods, “So he was responsible for the deaths of Akio and all of those other people?” Oliver nods again, “Then you don’t need to ask for anybody’s forgiveness. What you did may not have been right, Oliver, and it can’t happen again. But you already know that, and the man was evil. He was pure evil, Oliver, and you were hurting. So as long as you can learn from your mistakes, there is no need for my forgiveness.”

Some of the tension visibly melts away from Oliver’s body, letting him pull her into him so that he can press a kiss to her forehead. “Love you.” He says, noticing as he does that Felicity is wearing his shirt, and _only_ his shirt as a result of her haste in rushing out to him. His arm tightens around her.

“How sweet.” Waller mocks. Oliver assumes that, when the scientists built her, they did not program her to understand positive human emotions.

“What do you want, Amanda?” Oliver hisses, repositioning himself between her and Felicity.

“To help you.” Oliver chuckles sardonically. “You haven’t returned home because you feel you’re a monster.” Felicity makes a small noise, like she wants to protest, to correct Waller and tell Oliver that he is not a monster, but Amanda continues before she has the chance, “You’re trying to deny it. Channelling your killer instinct into something productive but you can’t change who you are in your bones.”

Disgruntled, Felicity leans out from behind Oliver, “In his bones he is a good man. And I agree, that is something that he _cannot_ change. Good men sometimes make bad decisions and do bad things, but that does not change the fact that Oliver is a good man.”

Amanda all but ignores Felicity, “And course, marrying perhaps the most light and genuinely _good_ woman that you could find was an excellent way for you to ignore the darkness inside you. Tell me, Oliver, does she even know a fraction of the things that you have done?”

“Stop!” Oliver growls, “You don’t get to comment on my personal life. You don’t get a say in my marriage.”

“Why not? Because what I’m saying rings true? Because you know that, deep down inside, you’re a monster and this farce of a life that you’ve created for yourself is not going to satisfy that part of you?”

Oliver starts to move forwards, furious, but stops when he feels Felicity’s reassuring hand on his still bare back, “I don’t need a therapist, Amanda. I _certainly_ don’t need _you_ to start psychoanalysing me and making idiotic assumptions about my relationship and my life.”

“The hood and eye makeup suggest otherwise.” Reluctant agreement flits across Felicity’s expression but she quickly wipes it off when she sees the look on Oliver’s face. “Stop trying to run from your inner darkness. Embrace it. Let it run its course. Often times, the only way out is through.”

“Through what?” Oliver says, turning to face Waller head on, “I’m not running from _anything_. Not anymore. I'm running towards something. Towards my life, my wife and, in the next few weeks, the rest of my family. I’m finally starting to get back to a good place, to get settled. I don’t plan on changing that any time soon, not for anything.”

“Whatever you say, Oliver. Come to me when everything catches up with you and you can’t deny the darkness anymore.” Amanda gets up, making her way to the door only to be stopped by a furious Felicity who has stormed past her husband.

“You don’t get to speak to him like that!” the hairs on the back of Oliver’s neck raise, instinctively signalling the danger that is Felicity’s loud voice. Once he reasons that it is not directed at him, he lets himself enjoy hearing her yell at somebody else for a change, “He has been through _so much_. A lot of which, _you_ have been directly responsible for, and he deserves to live his life now. He deserves to rest and heal and realise that darkness isn’t something inevitable inside him. Everybody has at least a little darkness. The circumstances that Oliver has experienced and that you have forced on him have caused for him to take actions that he never would have wanted to otherwise. Just to survive.”

She is within touching distance of Amanda, her index finger pointed in the taller woman’s face. In spite of the fact that Amanda is fully dressed in a suit, her hair pulled back into a perfect bun and everything about her is designed to exude power, Felicity has, half naked and still sex rumpled in Oliver’s shirt, completely dominated the room, “Those circumstances and decisions have also forged him into a better man, not a worse one, so I suggest that you leave our house and you leave our family alone otherwise I will make your life a living hell.”

By this point, Felicity is completely in Waller’s space, nostrils flared with anger, and Amanda is starting to look defensive. Knowing that Amanda Waller on defence is never good for anyone, Oliver moves forward to pull Felicity back by her waist. He tucks her into his side, “I think you should go, Amanda.” She does not look happy about it, but she complies.

*************************

Alone in their home again, Felicity turns herself into Oliver’s chest, placing a kiss over his heart before moving up to his lips, “You are a good man, Oliver Smoak Queen. And I love you. No matter what.”

“I love you so much.” He pulls away from her, going to prepare breakfast as he had intended. “Pancakes?” he offers, feeling that they both deserve a treat after the rough start to their day.

“Chocolate chips?” Felicity pouts, irresistible to Oliver.

“Only for you.” He concedes.

They settle down to their pancakes not long after, sipping at their mugs of coffee like they do every morning. Not even half way into the meal, there is a ruckus downstairs, what must be dozens of feet storming their way up to Oliver and Felicity’s door. In the moment that the door crashes open, Oliver sees somebody else on their fire exit, breaking into their house. He goes to grab Felicity, to get her to safety, but as soon as he stands, his vision blurs, the room spinning before him.

Felicity stumbles into him, looking dizzy herself, just as a semicircle of intruders surrounds the two of them, “A.R.G.U.S. Agents.” Oliver slurs, swaying on the spot. He casts his glance around the room as best as he can, landing on the coffee pot and realising what has happened. They have coffee together every day.

“Oliver?” Felicity looks so confused.

“Felicity.” He manages, looking down at his wife’s beautiful face, the only thing that he is able to focus on. She slumps in his arms, losing her battle for consciousness, “Felicity!” he panics.

He looks back up and sees Amanda Waller returning to their home, a smug look on her face, “When you wake up,” her voice sounds echoed, like multiple Amanda Wallers are talking all at once, “Just remember that I’m trying to help.” And then Oliver joins his wife on the ground and the last thing that he sees before everything goes black is her.

*************************

Felicity is on their sofa when she comes to. She is alone, splayed out with Oliver’s shirt barely covering her lower half for the way that it is rucked up.

“Oliver?” she calls out, sending out a rare prayer that she is wrong. That he has not been taken away from her just as their life is beginning. “Oliver.” She tries to hold back the way that her voice breaks. She looks around, nothing is out of place. Everything is exactly as it was when they were happily eating together. How could their lives change so suddenly?

Her eyes catch on something, a bit of paper on the round coffee table by the window. That is different. That was not there before.

She skids to her knees before it, unfolding the sheet before she can think better of it and reading.

_Mrs Smoak Queen,_

_I trust that you will keep quiet about the events in your townhouse this morning, and that nobody will ever discover of your dealings with Mr Smoak Queen this summer. We would not want anything to happen to him, after all._

_In the likelihood that I have need for your… particular set of skills, I will contact you. I know that I can expect your full cooperation._

_If it is any consolation, Mr Smoak Queen should complete his mission within the next few months and unless another issue comes up that he is specifically suited to deal with, he will be allowed to return to Starling to complete the mission that he has shared with you._

_~AW_

The letter is a thinly veiled threat. It might as well read ‘Felicity, keep your mouth shut or I’ll start hurting people you care about. And if you want Oliver to stay safe, you’ll work for me whenever I want you to. I have full control over his life now. Have fun, Mandy xoxo’. But it does not, because that is not Amanda Waller’s style.

*************************

All that she wants is to crawl back into the bed that they had been in together only a few hours before, seeing in the day in the best way possible. She wants to bury her face in Oliver’s pillow and inhale his comforting scent until she cries herself to exhaustion and passes out. But what good would that do? Oliver would not want her to do that, he would want her to keep going, to keep fighting.

So, only an hour after her world falls apart once again, Felicity Smoak Queen pulls her wedding ring from her finger and threads it onto its chain, letting it fall around her neck and over her heart where it will stay until she gets her husband back. She picks herself up off of the floor, she rushes to get ready so that she can at least attempt to get to work on time. She pushes down the heartbreak and despair threatening to break her.

There is a lot to do. She has a husband to track down, a criminal working at her company and a government agency to destroy. She had better get on with it.

As soon as possible.

*************************

Oliver startles to life in a metal cylinder. He is in a plane. There are two guys before him, one in a suit and the other in an A.R.G.U.S. uniform. Suit speaks first, “Nice nap?”

“I wasn’t _napping_. I was drugged. Where is Felicity? Where is Waller?” the disorientation does a good job of keeping the fear from his voice.

“Back in Starling City. Your wife is just fine, Mister Queen-”

“_Smoak_ Queen.”

“Whatever, she’s fine either way. She woke up hours ago in your little townhouse, we didn’t give her any extra doses. As for Director Waller, she’s sleeping off the scotch.”

“Wake her up! I told her that I wouldn’t do her dirty work anymore. I’m going back to my wife.” He is getting angry.

“Director Waller has asked me to thank you for… _agreeing_ to take on this mission. She promises to ensure your wife’s safety until your return as a token of thanks.”

“I didn’t _agree_. And I don’t want A.R.G.U.S. _anywhere near_ Felicity. I’d much rather keep her safe myself, so send me back. _Now_.” He growls, finally standing up.

A gun is pointed at him and he makes some noises of protest before suit guy cuts him off, “Sorry. We’re on a bit of a clock here. Now, you’re going to get off this plane. Either with a ‘chute on your back or a bullet in your head. Your call. But I don’t think that your wife will appreciate the second option. Especially not after Waller has to withdraw her protection.”

Oliver does not hesitate to grab the parachute, nothing is as important as Felicity.

“Why is Waller doing this?” he asks, hopelessness bleeding into his words.

“I guess she likes you.” Suit begins to advance on Oliver, forcing him to back up towards the end of the aircraft that Oliver already knows will soon open, “I didn’t think she could like anybody. Plus, you know the terrain.”

“What _terrain_?” Oliver spits out.

Suit ignores him, “Your job is to infiltrate the area, assess the threat and report back.” Suit keeps talking, but Oliver cannot hear most of what he is saying beyond the buffeting wind coming through the opening hanger door. Luckily, he does catch enough to grasp some basic tips on skydiving.

*************************

Once Suit’s mouth stops moving, Oliver allows himself to turn around and see where he is being send. His heart just about stops. It is Lian Yu. He only just escaped and they are sending him back to this place that features in almost all of Oliver’s nightmares.

“Wait. Is that-” he starts, but then there is a boot in his face and he is falling.

Falling, falling, _falling_.

Straight back to Purgatory.

His only thought as he falls is to get the job done so that he can go home to Felicity.

As soon as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY!
> 
> I really am. I wanted to give you all a lovely, happy ending with all of the things that you wanted to see but unfortunately, that was never the plan. Whether Oliver went to Coast City or Starling, Reiter was always going to go to Lian Yu and cause problems for Waller, so she was always going to need Oliver's expertise. And whether he was a vigilante in Coast City or a husband in Starling, she was never going to play fair.
> 
> The good news is... it's not over! Whilst this is the end of Under Different Circumstances, as several of you have noticed, UDC is Part 1 of The Light in the Darkness series, and there will be more parts! I am planning to return with Part 2 in late February, so the wait should not be too long. And as for the promises that I have made about certain interactions and reveals happening, they will still happen. I never promised that they would happen in UDC, but they will happen in TLitD.
> 
> So thank you very much for reading UDC and I hope to see you all in February for Part 2. Make sure you're subscribed to the series if you want to get the update when it happens!
> 
> Thank you all again <3<3<3

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a beta so all mistakes are on me, but I'd be happy if anyone wanted to beta for me.
> 
> I'm on Twitter [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera).


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